"An optimist is the human personification of spring."

Another week done, time is speeding on through the year, half way through May already. Yet the weather continues to confound us, warm and sunny one minute, torrential rain and chilly the next. A gardener is never happy with the weather. Its been absolutely wonderful to see the nursery full of customers enjoying a wander in the gardens and browsing the sales area and stock beds. Chatting about plants and gardens and getting some wonderful feedback, it makes all the hard work worth it. 

Lemon blossom

My lemon tree continues to flower which hopefully means more lemons next year. They have a lovely scent and I still have 2 lemons from this year left to use and I've just noticed 2 baby tiny lemons, yay.

Another rain shower on the way

Most days its been blue skies and white fluffy clouds, the next looming, dark and snowing! Then I drove home in a blizzard with peas sized hail. We are nearly half way through the year and it still feels like winter. Speaking of winter, on Wednesday I drove home through a blizzard and was lying quite white.

All sunshine and blue skies in between icy sleety rain showers on Thursday. When the sun shone it really set of the flowers emerging from their winter sleep. Colour in the Railway garden doesn't appear until later on as this garden is all about mid to late simmer flowers, based on prairie and new perennial movement planting. But I've made sure there is colour all year round and at the moment its about newly emerging foliage and the early flowering Euphorbia polychroma.

Actaea simplex 'Pink Spike'

Euphorbia polychroma

Helleborus foetidus

Osmunda regalis

 tree Paeonia

Wildlife in the railway garden

6th May, still got all the winter layers on!
It snowed all day in between the hail showers

Looking for something a bit different for summer colour amongst the perennials in your borders? I've put lots of summer bulbs out in the sales area this week.

Lily 'Black Beauty' (my fav)

Lily 'Casa Blanca'

Lily 'Star gazer'

Lily regale

Allium cernuum

Allium Carinatum pulchellum

Anthericum liliago

Agapanthus Headbourne hybrids

New perennials in the sales area

Campanula 'Loddon Anna'

Acanthus hungaricus

We're open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm and Junkshopantiques is open Saturday and Sunday 10am to 4pm.

See you soon

Well Saturday was a dreich day! But not only do I sell hardy plants I have hardy customers too and it was lovely to see the nursery busy with customers no matter the weather.

The main task of the day was to deal with my messy greenhouse, ideal for a wet day. I got the bubble wrap off for summer (at last and hopefully that's the heater switched off for a while too) I don't think I've ever had to have the greenhouse heater on into May! Once the bubble wrap was off I worked through all the plants, tidying, giving them a feed and top dress. All the trays of cacti, succulents and pelargonums for sale have gone into the wee tunnel, where they will get tidied up ready for sale in summer.

Once tidied the greenhouse got a good water. Sadly I may have lost a few of my semi-tender specimen plants which were in the wee polytunnel. In normal circumstances this would have been more than adequate but this past winter has been challenging. My olive and lemon verbena have been cut right back and I've put them into the greenhouse to see if there is any hope of recovery.

One of the lovely things about spending time in the greenhouse is working with my Pelagonium collection as many of them are scented. Its quite therapeutic! Many of the plants I've had for decades. My grape vine is 27 years old and I bought it when I got this greenhouse in my first garden! It fruits every year, the grapes are small but quite edible. The yucca was a house warming present for my last house 21 years ago and my Clivia is a family heir loom. Its piece from my great Aunts plant which I've had for nearly 30 years, and her plant was ancient! One of my agaves I grew from seed I bought in Arizona in 2007. I have over 60 Pelargoniums now, but there are many more I would like, I prefer species and scented Pelargoniums but love a good dark flowered one too. Maybe I need another greenhouse?

Plants not only give us the joy of growing and being in nature, they also evoke memories and connect us to family and friends, even if they are long gone.

Lots of people name their house plants, this one is called Jaggy F. I'll let you work that one out

Its Proper name is Agave parryii and I grew it from seed I bought in Arizona in 2006. Its well over due potting up so today was the day. I was well reminded how it earned its name! lol Looks much better in a bigger pot and back in the greenhouse.

This months treat to me is a pair of Quirky Bird earings made by the very talented Linda Lovett of Beastie assemblage Lovatt Gallery in Jedburgh

Rainbow over Innerleithen on the way home. Another busy day in the nursery and glad to have David and Fiona helping out with customers and work. Who doesn't like staff who bring you creme eggs? Thanks Fiona, much appreciated :) At least the weather was warmer even if showery and there was much propagation and fence building happening :)

Very excited to get our new Chestnut fencing in place between the Winter garden and topiary garden on the bottom terrace today. Sourced from Say It With Wood and made from sustainably sourced sweet chestnut it is producing the rustic look I wanted to divide up these two gardens. Love a bit of progress in the gardens and thank you to David for putting it all together today

Now I just need to find the time to finish planting up the winter garden and get the bark for the path

On Monday it was polytunnel day and amongst other things I potted up over 500 seedlings, 23 different varieties of plants and the polytunnel is creaking at the joints again only several 1000 more to pot but lots of lovely, exciting varieties coming to the stock beds and sales area this year and next year

Bracken Dodds and I are in print. One of my photos has been featured in this new walking book

We had a lovely day out to one of my favourite places that has been inspiring me for the past 40 years. Lunch on the terrace under the wisteria and a wander around Larch Cottage Nursery and gardens. We came back via the A7 to Langholm where we stopped to take Bracken for a walk and by chance an ice cream sitting in the sun by the river. Lovely drive home through the remote hills over Eskdalemuir in great weather and we saw a GOLDEN EAGLE So good to be able to go somewhere different and have lunch out, thank you David

Cherry Blossom

Title quote - Susan J. Bissonette

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