Explore Garden Art: Inspiring Beauty for Winter Days

A woman reading in a garden, seated in a deck chair surrounded by blooming white flowers and greenery, with a dog resting nearby.

During rainy wintery conditions garden books and especially garden artworks and paintings are a restorative pastime.. When we can’t be out enjoying nature, artworks and garden paintings can offer inspiration.

A vibrant oil painting depicting a garden with blossoming flowers and lush greenery, showcasing a path winding through colorful rose bushes.

Gardening is a creative process where nature, art and gardens converge. Artists often express the beauty of nature and capture the aesthetic charm from surroundings in their paintings. Garden paintings can symbolise life, love, passion, or depict everyday life and the contentment that nature and a garden provides.

Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.”
Elizabeth Murray

Lush garden scene with vibrant green foliage and a blue sky, featuring a hint of warm sunlight filtering through the leaves, creating a serene and inviting atmosphere.

As we see in the feature image at the top of the page, the painting “The Artists Wife in the Garden” by Peder Severin Krøyer is very enticing. The light and shadows capture the mood, creating a carefree, light, and inviting atmosphere. It makes me want to join her in the sun and enjoy reading in the garden.

“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them”
John Ruskin

A vibrant garden scene filled with colorful flowers and greenery, depicting a tranquil outdoor setting that evokes a sense of peace and beauty. — The Artist’s Garden at Giverny, 1900 by Claude Monet

There are many benefits for gardeners in viewing artworks, apart from the pleasure of finding inspiration and boosting creativity for their own gardens. Viewing garden artworks and paintings can increase empathy, tolerance and critical thinking. When we view art, we activate the reward centre of our brain. This may decrease stress or high cortisol levels, much like when we are actually outdoors in nature or gardening.

A vibrant garden scene featuring lush greenery and a variety of colorful flowers, evoking a sense of tranquillity and beauty. — French Painter Blanche Hoschedé Monet Le Jardin et les Fleurs, s.d. oil on canvas

Garden artworks and paintings for those who enjoy gardening offer a deep sense of familiarity which is appealing and rewarding. They open a world of possibilities for new ideas. Seeing the way that an artist cleverly captures texture, light and colour, bringing a landscape to life with their ingenuity is uplifting.

“Gardening is a means by which you can attain many valuable hours of solitude without being thought unsociable.”
Jan Struther

A vibrant Impressionist painting featuring blooming roses in shades of pink along a garden pathway, illuminated by dappled sunlight filtering through lush greenery. — French painter Octave Denis Victor Guillonnet- Jardin Fleuri, 1960, oil on canvas

Gardeners appreciate an artist’s ability to “see” and capture the fine details of plants and gardens, their beauty, and intricacies. In much the same way that visiting famous gardens can develop inspiration for our own gardens. The older garden artworks and paintings also provide a valuable historical aspect that has a place and importance for garden design research.

“The garden reconciles human art and wild nature, hard work and deep pleasure, spiritual practice
and the material world. It is a magical place because it is not divided.”
Thomas Moore

A vibrant garden scene painted in rich colors, featuring a figure dressed in period clothing standing amidst blooming flowers, with a backdrop of a house and laundry hanging on a line. — Emil Nolde, *Flower Garden*, 1908, Nolde Museum, Nordfriesland, Germany.

Additionally, garden artworks enliven the senses and may evoke a sense of peace and tranquility. Devouring garden books during winter certainly have their place; a cold wet day, a mug of tea, the fireside, and art books is all one needs.

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Tullius Cicero

A vibrant painting of a woman tending to a colorful garden filled with various flowers, set against a red building in the background. — Selma in the Garden, Oil painting by T. C. Steele

Although, it is almost bare-root rose season and in anticipation of planting the new roses there is still a lot of post Autumn work to be done; weeding, soil preparation and cutting back As the garden is cleared of weeds and last summer’s spent annuals and perennials, I’m covering the soil with my favourite mulch- whoflungdung.

Mulching is well worth the time and effort. It will protect the soil and plants from the cold, either snow or frost, help to suppress more weeds, and give the soil a boost of nutrients plus, it looks good. The garden will then be ready for warmer weather come September (except for the pruning). in late August

In winter there are for many of us three gardens – the garden outdoors, the garden of pots in the house, and the garden of the mind’s eye.”
Katherine S. White

A vibrant landscape painting depicting two figures amid colorful foliage and trees, with a serene ocean and a sailboat in the background.

After the recent spell of rain the soil is soft and manageable, when possible I’m taking the opportunity to finish moving some of the roses. to better spots. There is some culling for under achievers to be managed and a few standard roses that were so enormous last year and need to be positioned with more space, It is a prickly difficult job on your own but necessary in a small garden.

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”
Rumi

A vibrant garden scene showcasing lush greenery, flowering plants, and a scenic pathway, illuminated by warm sunlight. — Colin Campbell Cooper, Samarkand, Santa Barbara, 1927, oil on canvas

When the roses are delivered in the post from the rose growers, I put the bare stalks in a bucket of water with eco seaweed to soak for 24 hours. This is good for the roses after transit because dormant roses must not dry out. This gives you 24 -48 hours to know exactly where they are to be planted. As the roses are usually ordered in Summer it is always an exciting time, and I love the anticipation of getting them in the ground or designated pot.

“I read [garden catalogs] for news, for driblets of knowledge, for aesthetic pleasure, and at the same time
I am planning the future, so I read in dream.”
Katherine White

Painting of a garden scene with blooming roses, greenery, and a cottage under a blue sky. — Danish Painter Michael Ancher, The Old Garden House, Summer, 1914

If for any reason your bare root roses are not able to be planted straight away or you have too many to plant at once they can be heeled in.

Heeling In Roses

Dig a wide long hole or trench in the garden and lay the roses at 45 degrees with the roots and a good part of the canes in the soil. Keep watered but not soggy, and make sure to check on them every day or two to ensure they don’t dry out.

Also, the same can be done in a trough, container or wheelbarrow. A long trough can hold several bare root roses until ready to plant into large pots or the garden.

Heeling in roses is a temporary situation until ready for planting. Don’t leave them for too long and get them into their home as soon as you can. No more than 2-3 weeks heeled in is what the experts say.

A tranquil garden scene featuring a winding path surrounded by blooming flowers and lush greenery, under a soft, light sky. — British Painter Beatrice Parsons, watercolour, ‘Pergola with an Alfred Carrier Rose Climbing up it, the Pathway Bordered with Lavender and Lilies.’

“Working in the garden … gives me a profound feeling of inner peace. Nothing here is in a hurry.
There is no rush toward accomplishment, no blowing of trumpets. Here is the great mystery of life and growth. Everything is changing, growing, aiming at something, but silently, unboastfully, taking its time.”
Ruth Stout