In 1982, Connecticut nurseryman Ken Twombly made an off-season pilgrimage to Scotland and England. Leaving behind a bleak monochromatic landscape, he was stunned to find gardens in the british Isles full of color and eye-catching winter pictures. At the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, one particular scene caught his attention: the snowy bark of paper birch (Betula Papyrifera) setting off the golden needles of a Scots pine (Pinus Sylvestris 'Aurea') underplanted with pink heather in full bloom.

From that moment on, Twombly cherished the notion of a winter garden for the American landscape. In 1994, his dream became a reality. It began almost by accident. " I had 1,500 yards of fill that we had just taken out of a pond." he explains. "We had to do something with it. So we mixed it with topsoil and started dumping it in this flat meadow." He knew then that he had found a site for his winter garden. "the first winter there wasn't much to look at." he said. "Many of the plants were still small, but once people heard about it, they began to come. There were footprints in the snow every day. The plants were secondary to the landscape, but they are what pull it all together and make the land sing a little bit."

While the majority of the trees and shrubs in the winter garden have only been in place about two years, some are already mature specimens, and the background trees date back to the founding for the nursery in the mid '60s. A glorious laceleaf Japanese maple near the entrance was added 15 years ago and is over 100 years old.

"We rescued that tree from the bulldozer," says Twombly. "There were two of them in front of an old house that was being torn down, and I stopped by to ask what they were going to do with the trees. The contractor said they would push them into the cellar hole, so we went over and dug them." They lost one, but the other is thriving. "It's a wonderful tree at any time of year," he adds. "But the structure in the winter - that's where it's at."

Trees and winter have been persistent themes in Twombly's life. He grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont surrounded by maples and conifers. In late winter, his main occupation was sugaring. "I used to do all the sugaring on the farm and all the logging," he says. "I liked anything to do with trees. It was just natural."

The next step led to the University of Connecticut and coursework in the arboriculture. He stayed on to start his tree business. Before long, he had planted over 25 acres with unusual woody plants. A magnificent dragon's eye pine with variegated needles dates from those early days. "We get a lot comments on that tree in the winter," he explains. "There just aren't many things in the evergreen family that show up that dramatically against the snow."

Winter Landscapes

1. Laceleaf Japanese Maple
   
2. Wintercreeper Euonymus
   
3. Red and Yellow Twig Dogwood
   
4. Drooping Leucothoe
   
5. Scarlet Curly Willow
   
6. Longstalk Holly
   
7. Dragon's Eye Pine
   
8. River Birch