I was always taught ‘not to eat yellow snow’ but the yellow in our snowy garden caught my attention. This Witch Hazel was positively glowing and offered a bright spark on an otherwise dull day. The tree has seldom been pruned and is now over 10 feet tall with a very lax and open habit. This means I can see large quantities of blossom on the branches in January and get the scent on a still day.

This Mahonia is 8 feet tall but gets some shelter from a near-by conifer. That is why there is a restricted amount of snow on the shrub when all around is covered. I bet the birds wish the berries would form a bit quicker as the snow has restricted their diet.

My favourite Euonymus has a pink tinge to the leaves under the snow. I wish my nose was only pinkly tinged but in the cold it is bright red! Only the top branches were poking out of the snow as this is a low growing specimen.

This conifer deserves to have the snow brushed off or the shape will be permanently deformed by the weight and the plants aesthetic appearance damaged. It is also possible that branches will break under the weight. At 5 foot tall this is as large as I want this conifer to grow and as usual I will rotate it out of the garden to compost shortly- I plant several conifers each year and on average remove a similar number as they outgrow the allotted space.