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| The snow is back! |
After a brief hint of spring the weather has turned colder this week. I spent most of Wednesday sorting out trees and shrubs to go into the sales area. We have lots of new evergreens, Rhododendrons, spring flowering shrubs, Hellebores and flowering cherries. They are all on the nursery website: Quercus Garden Plants
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| Lots of lovely colourful evergreens to give all year round colour in your garden |
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| Dwarf Rhododendrons including blue, red, pink and white flowering varieties |
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| Spring colour in the sales area |
As the week went on the weather got worse with freezing rain all day on Thursday. I've spent the wet cold days putting new plants onto the website plant lists, doing admin and getting bed labels back into the stock beds after David painted and re-wrote them over winter. I am ever thankful for my super heater in the office on days like this. There is one thing with all this bad weather I am getting ahead in a lot of admin and other small tasks that sometimes get overlooked as we are usually so busy outside. But it is frustrating to be so behind in the gardens and nursery so that is why had you visited the nursery, you would have found me outside dodging the sleety showers on Friday. It's three weeks since I started cutting back and tidying the scented garden, then mother nature flung a whole lot of snow and ice our way and progress stopped. I managed to get the rest of the scented garden tidied and weeded and got the last of the bark on. Despite the wind chill it was fairly warm barrowing the bark up hill and very satisfying end to Friday to finally get that garden finished. Only several more to go.
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| Starting the scented garden winter tidy up at the end of February |
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| finishing the scented garden winter tidy up mid March |
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| The scented garden with its new bark on |
Customers at the nursery quite often ask us to put their change in a charity tin. After a lot of thought over the winter (there are so many charities we'd love to support which are close to our hearts: cancer, animals, mental health, miscarriage support) we have decided to raise money for Breast Cancer Care. This charity were a huge support to my sister Mhairi through all the stages of her cancer right up to the end and we'd like to be able to give something back, no matter how small.
The weekend was again a complete non starter thanks to the weather, a mini version of the earlier beast from the east with wintery snow showers and a howling wind all day. Factor in a wind chill of -10C and you can understand my malaise and thoughts of emigrating or hibernating. So frustrating for the business and getting work done. I managed in between warming up over the heater to fill the grasses table in the sales area. Plants tidied, top dressed and labelled and looking smart. I've brought all the new evergreens in undercover as this bitter wind will only decimate them and make them unsaleable. The joy of being a nursery owner in upland Scotland. Even more snow fell overnight into Sunday and although the main roads were clear the carpark at Whitmuir was full of drifting snow and the nursery was again under four to six inches. I made the decision to close for the day, put all the closed signs up and headed home. I never waste any extra time I get and spent the day in the warm cleaning the house, doing the ironing, admin and getting ahead for the coming week.
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| Chionochloa rubra |
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| I always like when an delivery arrives in the post of new plants for my own personal plant collection. This time it was 10 new Pelargoniums, all species, for my collection, which now brings the number to 70. Still a few to go! Need another heated greenhouse....... David? |
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| Saturday at the nursery |
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| Sunday in the nursery |
In order to catch up I decided to go in to the nursery on Monday and Tuesday. There was still snow lying for most of the day on Monday and everything is frozen but it is melting just not where I need it to melt. The sun was out most of the day which helped so I spent the morning doing jobs that don't require being outside. Sowing seeds, great to get started on this task at last, there's a lot to get through! Writing a newsletter, bringing up the new pots that were delivered, terracotta and glazed in a variety of sizes, more on them later once I've taken photos. I also got the rest of the stock bed labels out in place and a list made of ones still missing.
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| Great to see some blue sky at last and the snow melting |
Tuesday saw me starting to tidy up the herb garden at last. The sun was out and there was even a hint of warmth. Although a big area, the borders in the herb garden are small and fairly quick to cut back and weed. I also top all the borders with our home made compost to help boost the very poor soil there. I didn't get the two L shaped beds done, they will have to wait for another day. But I was very pleased with progress made. I'm really pleased to see how many herbs have survived and in fact look really good after such a cold and snowy winter. I always recognised planting a herb garden on cold clay soil in a north facing garden would be / could be somewhat challenging, but we gardeners love a challenge, or trying something out and chancing our luck that it might just work. So far so good! One or two plants look a bit poor but hopefully they will pull through. I was proved correct about one of the L shaped borders that was very wet last year. The Santolinas and Helichrysum italica have all died, not liking their feet in waterlogged soil all winter. I will have to reconsider what to plant in this border.
So that's another winter week, it does feel that spring has abandoned us completely and I can't remember the last time I felt warm. Surely the weather must improve soon and we can enjoy having all our lovely customers visiting again. Have a good week, hopefully some gardening too.
If you want to find out what's been happening in our garden at home like our Facebook page
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Find out more about the nursery here - our web site: www.quercusgardenplants.co.uk
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All contents and photographs © Rona, unauthorised reproduction & use of these images is strictly forbidden, thank you
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