Winter is upon us and I am not looking forward to it unfolding one bit. Without doubt November is the most uninspiring month of the year in the garden. It's dank and unpleasant- and that's on a good day! But don't shut down garden-wise and cut everything back to bare earth, a process known as "putting the garden to bed".

There are some compensations. Low sunlight picks up the detail on stems and trunks, frost often rimes intricate seed heads, high-gloss greens glow and there are also glimmers of real flowers on the horizon. So keep your garden going for aesthetic reasons. It can still lift the spirits, especially when Viburnum x bodnantense Dawn' breaks into flower wafting its spicy, hyacinth fragrance over wide areas.

A bare garden not only looks bleak, it offers no shelter for wildlife. So leave some plants intact and allow leaf litter to gather under shrubs. This will help insects, bumble bees, solitary bees and amphibians to prosper within your garden. Seed heads are important refuges, too. A couple of years ago I was busy writing a book called The Winter Garden ( published by Cassell).

I collected lots of stiff phlomis seed heads and brought them in to describe. Six different types of phlomis lay on a tray and their multi-chambered heads were all different. Within minutes tiny spiders, small ladybirds and other tiny creatures had woken from their winter slumber, lulled into a false spring by the warmth of the study. I found myself rushing back and forth to relocate them in the cold, outdoor world where they had to stay to ensure survival.

So I can recommend phlomis, not only for its stiffly rigid beauty but for its eco-friendly chambered heads, too.

There are shrubby evergreen phlomis and herbaceous ones that tend to to die down, depending on the severity of the winter. Phlomis vary in size and stature but most have woolly silver or sage-green leaves. They all come from well-drained places in Europe and Asia and all need a sunny, well-drained position in the garden setting.

One of the most commonly grown is the shrubby Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa ) and this medium-sized evergreen shrub bears bright-yellow flowers.

The more-tender, silver-leaved Phlomis italica is a much more genteel plant with small heads of pink flowers and almost-white leaves. Find it a hot spot close to a sunny wall or building.

There are also perennial phlomis and these can cover wide areas of the border. They are excellent at the front of sun-loving silvers and their stiff stems, whorled in flower, often have a jaunty tuft of miniature leaves at the top.

The broad apple-green leaves of the widely available Phlomis russeliana cover the ground flattering the metre high stems of two-tone yellow flowers perfectly.

There is also a fine form called Edward Bowles', which is a real beauty. And in recent years a summer-flowering, pink-flowered form Phlomis tuberosum Amazone', has also become trendy.This plant has dark wiry stems and plum-pink flowers and it also produces round tubers - so it must be very drought tolerant.

The hooded spikes of acanthus are handsome and wildlife friendly. The acorn-like seed pod is a shiny chestnut-brown, though it rarely contains viable seed in Britain.

Walk through any Greek island and seeds explode over you in late summer and autumn, like party poppers bent on celebration.

The bracts cover the pods in winter and the gap between the two forms a perfect mini beast refuge. Most acanthus produce hooded flowers in combinations of white, purple or pink and the foliage is extremely handsome as well.

The most floriferous form is Acanthus spinosus, though if your soil is too dry mildew will strike and mar the foliage.

The most satisfying thing about acanthus is its adaptability. It can flower in sun and shade in Britain - though it rarely produces more than five spikes per plant for me. It also has good years and bad years- so the quantity of flower is always something of a surprise.

But when I went to South Africa last year there were magnificent clumps beside the roads - with between ten and 20 flowering stalks per plant. They were obviously encouraged by hot South African sun and high rainfall.

Other late, herbaceous plants include daisies and the most enduring is Echinacea purpurea, the purple-cone flower. Their dark cones remain intact until early spring and there are many new echinaceas to choose from. All have golden-brown middles, with olive-green undertones so they mix well with almost any colour. New varieties include Fatal Attraction', a dark pink with ragged sepals and Art's Pride' - a sunset-warm orange.

I also leave the heads of agastaches, some crocosmias (including C. masoniorum) and a maroon cornflower called Centaurea benoistii. The latter opens to form a small, wide-open saucer of silver.

Asters, rudbeckias and grasses also catch the low sunlight and I adore tall varieties of Miscanthus sinensis and a tall, black-beaded molinia called Transparent'. These grasses move and tremble like a veil throughout winter.

If we get a frost, my hydrangea heads turn into etched Lalique glass. But I don't go for moisture-loving blue and pink mopheads. I favour cool-white hydrangeas instead. The flat-topped white flowers ofHydrangea arborescens Annabelle' can measure almost a foot across on rich soil. But once the flowers fade, the petals disintegrate until only the skeleton remains. The triangular heads of H. paniculata Limelight' disintegrate just as delightfully.

And there are always glimmers of red, whether it be hips, berries or haws. Sometimes red fruit persists on bare branches, too unappetising for the birds perhaps, as with the crab apple Malus x robusta Red Sentinel'. At other times finches and tits devour the fruit and my top bird plant in November is a tall shrub rose called Rosa glauca.

So don't despair, there are ways of making this month bearable. Although you may have to resort to birdwatching instead of gardening.