VAL BOURNE suggests a box of colour to brighten dark evenings

In recent weeks I have been compiling a diary and garden planner for a well-known homes and gardens magazine. One of my many and varied tasks was to ask well-respected and famous gardeners for monthly tips. One winter suggestion from Wolfgang Bopp, the curator of the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, (01794 368787) near Winchester, shone out for me.

Wolfgang suggested that gardeners "bring something nice to the front door by planting up a pot for winter interest". He added that "it will raise a smile each time you leave the house and when you come home".

It's very good advice because winter can be bleak and inhospitable and you find yourself scurrying head down from gate to door - often in the dark. So a well-placed container in the lee of the main door is an excellent winter welcomer for you and your visitors. This year I have planted up a wooden half-barrel with some new plants bought at a local garden centre using soil-based John Innes number 2 compost.

When I arrived at the garden centre I went round looking for inexpensive plants that were less than 2ft in height. That's roughly two thirds of the height of my container and this is the best scale for squat, low containers.

I chose a key plant that I liked, one that would give me months of interest and then looked for some toning partners. My star plant was Skimmia japonica Rubella', a small slow-growing evergreen topped with conical clusters of maroon-red buds. These festive-looking buds give months of presence before they open.

But there are several excellent skimmias besides including Skimmia x confusa Kew Green'. It's very similar in form to Rubella' but the leaves are a brighter green and the conical heads contain pale-green buds that open to cream flowers. Both are slightly fragrant.

Skimmias grow in the Himalayas and eastern Asia and they are dioecious, that is they bear male and female flowers on separate plants. The male varieties often have attractive conical heads of buds but the female varieties bear large, bright-red berries. These can look equally attractive and the most common berrier is Skimmia japonica subsp. reevesiana.

Once chosen, I went round looking for similar maroon-red, smoky tones and discovered a short euphorbia with velvety dark rosettes called Efanthia'. It's one of many you could use. Blackbird' or E. x martinii would also work well. I also spotted the very fragrant Sarcococca confusa, a shiny green evergreen with pale-cream flowers. This is probably one of the most fragrant winter evergreens of all and it's the most handsome of the sarcococcas, or Christmas Boxes.

These Asian sarcococcas were virtually unknown in gardens 15 years ago, but they are now widely available and they make fantastic container plants. The elegantly classy S. confusa has greener leaves and ivory-white flowers. But there are others with olive-green, matt foliage and pinker, red-stamened flowers. Of these S. hookeriana var. digyna is probably the most potently fragrant winter-flowering shrub of all.

Always try to incorporate some fine-leaved grasses to add movement and contrast. I chose three potfuls of brown carex to swirl among my evergreens and I also added a plum and silver heuchera, a plain-green euonymus and ivy. My spirits lift every time I see it and when I break it up in a year or two the plants will go in my garden.