Will it ever thaw?

We are back from New Zealand full of the joys of life and ready to enter the Spring madhouse of seed planting, catalogue requests and garden maintenance.

Instead we were met with iron hard ground, minus 10 to minus 15 degrees C night temperatures. Then several inches of snow just to round things of - oh and our domestic water froze up for 5 days. So all systems have slowed down, but now on the 4th of March there are the glimmerings of hope that thaw and spring are on there way.

Listed in RHS "Six UK Exotic Gardens"

I noticed an upsurge in traffic from the Royal Horticultural Society website lately, so had a wee look and was delighted to see that they have included us in a list of Six gardens that contained exotic plants from around the world

They highlight our use of such gems as osteospermum, gazanias, diaramas, crocosmia and schizostylus, all of which I love and which do so well with us on the Loch Side.

We are longtime RHS members and have always had a great relationship with the organisation and the people we have met through it. This was a lovely surprise, and will hopefully help a little as we release our new catalogue in the next few weeks. Every little helps.......

Gardening tasks that can still be done in all this snow

The best laid Plans o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley

Well the weather of the last three weeks couldn't have upset my garden plans much more.

Winter is when I get caught up with the garden, gather leaves, clean out streams, make new garden beds, remove old and dead branches from trees and shrubs..... but with at least a foot of hard snow over everything and glazed ice on the branches its no-go, so what can you do!!

Inside, the first seeds can be sown, onions and parsley need an early start in a heated propagater, and there are a number of seeds that benefit from a period of cold to get them to germinate.

You can also write the labels for all the other things you will be sowing when spring comes along, that will be a time consuming chore done, as long as you remember where you've put them.

Outside, after every new snowfall, gently shake the snow of your favourite shrubs and small trees so that