In January, gardeners stare longingly at soggy patches of lawn and bare trees, scouring the earth for the tender spear of a spring bulb or the plump purple protuberance of a leaf bud on a naked branch

But, wait! I've already gone on about the best plants for a winter garden, which is all very well in theory, but seeing them in action at RHS Wisley in Surrey is even better.

It’s one thing to admire a thicket of 'Midwinter Fire' dogwood in the park, stems like embers in the low winter sun. Quite another to take yourself off to one of the biggest and best-known gardens in the UK and see how the best in the business do it.

Sun was forecast for our Sunday foray – but we hardly needed it. The colour from Wisley’s winter planting is staggering. The dedicated Winter Walk, a 45-minute meander along marked paths through woodland, alongside the great Glasshouse, flanking borders and beside a lake, was planted up seven years ago. Now, at full maturity, it’s an absolute delight.

The first thing that hits you is the scent. Great billowing wafts, a fabulous sensual assault after days of dank grey gloom, from pretty pink and white daphnes planted thickly alongside the main path.
There are more varieties than I knew existed, among them Daphne bholua ‘Hazel Edwards’, my new favourite, much better than my second favourite, what's-her-face. Hazel Edwards' pure-white star-shaped wax-like flowers pop against the deep green evergreen leaves.

Then come thickets of witch hazel cultivars, their perfume spicy and exotic. The intriguing, spidery flowers cling close to the branch, in shades of gold, copper, and amber. These elegant shrubs (or small trees? Close enough for government work), are almost horizontal, with spreading, reaching branches.

Here we’re at the woodland’s edge and among the leaf litter are hellebores, hundreds of them, in shades of white and cream, with pale green centres. The white against deep earthy brown is a triumph of nature.

Up ahead, colour from a thicket of ghostly white silver birch and a massed planting of cornus draws us on towards the Glasshouse, which is surrounded by low hedges of bright green Sarcococca in full flower; we linger to draw in deep breaths of the fresh, sweet scent. These are cleverly planted against a backdrop of buff grasses and clipped hornbeam columns.

Edgworthia chrysantha is one of the headliners in this winter programme. The next showstopping scene is 100-plus of these delicate-looking Chinese shrubs filling a border backed with lush green pines, their strange pale-ash downturned buds just about to come into flower. The effect is ethereal and utterly gorgeous. A little further, more bright cornus set against zingy golden conifers is an inspired partnership. As is a combination of neatly rounded low Pinus mugo planted with hummocks of pale yellow carex and deep plum hellebores. And then there’s a mass of Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’, the pale lemon yellow one. If I had the space in my garden, this is the bit I’d copy. There must be 40 or 50 of the witch hazels, a paperbark maple (Acer griseum) at the centre, and the scent is knockout.

The star of the show for me is the lake and surrounding planting.

The colour palette is deep mahogany Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Tom Thumb’, the acid green of various dwarf pines like Pinus mugo 'Jalubi', golden grasses, and white drifts of snowdrops. Totally uplifting.

That is only a taste of what we saw at Wisley last weekend, there was so much more: colour and texture from tree bark, bright early spring bulbs such as sky-blue Iris reticulata and the first foliage of the daffodils spearing up.
The dramatic arching bleached white stems of Rubus cockburnianus, tee-hee (oh, grow up. Honestly), great swathes of pink and white heather, skimmias, viburnums and more.

We came back from Wisley refreshed, inspired, and ready to take on the rest of winter.

3 more winter gardens to visit

If you can’t make it to Wisley, try:

1. Forde Abbey and Gardens, Chard, Somerset. Opens in February for their famous Snowdrop Weekends.
2. Anglesey Abbey Winter Gardens, Lode, Cambridge. The silver birch copse is legendary, and they have snowdrops too!
3. Rousham Park House and Garden, Steeple Aston, Oxfordshire. Untainted by shops and tearooms, highlights of this William Kent garden include a parterre and pigeon house, walled garden, statues, and temples.