This central bed was designed to provide good colour and interest throughout the autumn and winter months. Autumn interest is primarily provided by the glowing foliage of Liquidambar styraciflua, Acer davidii (snake-bark maple), Acer consipicuum 'Phoenix', and Euonymus europaeus ‘Red Cascade’. More recent additions include the pretty sorbus 'Chinese Lace and gingkyo biloba 'Saratoga'. The dogwoods also colour well in autumn, although they are of equal for their beautiful red, yellow and orange stems in winter. The red stems of Cornus alba 'Sibirica' look particularly lovely with their underplanting of snowdrops on a bright winter’s day.

This bed was enlarged in the autumn of 2007 and now features a winding bark path lined with many of our ferns, interspersed with other shade-loving perennials such as tiarella polyphylla, along with oriental hellebores and various pulmonaria for late winter interest. The extra space has been used to plant some small shrubs that we hope will enjoy the dappled shade, including some of the rarer cultivars of hydrangea serrata as well as mahonia gracilipes and m.gracilis. We have also planted hardy cyclamen - c.hederifolium for the autumn and c.coum for the winter - which we hope will naturalise here. This bed is alos home to several of our hardy geraniums