Some weeks feel like wading through treacle!

Magnolias, pleased with this one

There is no such thing as a day off when you are a gardener, especially when you are Mother gardener and your kids finally have their own gardens! We had a great day through with middle son Jamie and Natasha sorting out their greenhouse. They bought their house late last year and have two greenhouses, including this huge one full of neglected fruit plants. Lots if plants pruned and tied in and lots of rubbish removed. David and Jamie got a lot of the glass replaced and Maisie kept everyone entertained. It was a beautiful day for it and we had a take away to finish off the day together before heading home.

 Abstract city with river reflections - something different today. This was painted using an old bank card!

We are very much looking forward to opening up again for the 2022 season when we open on Saturday 5th March with our usual hours of Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm.

We have lots of lovely plants growing on to sell, old favourites and lots of new varieties to tempt you with. Our wee shop and pot area will be stuffed full of lots of lovely new items, many of which we are stocking for the first time. These include plant supports, bird feeders and baths, bug hotels, garden sundries, string, seeds, gift cards, vases and compost. All of which are made from natural materials and recycled if possible. You can see what is available on the shop page of our website.

We also have a new garden - the Winter Garden - finished for you to get inspiration for winter interest plants, this is on the bottom terrace beyond the wildlife and cornucopia gardens. The Garden railway will be running during the summer and the timetable is on our facebook page here and website events page.

We also have new staff this year and I'm very much looking forward to working with Fiona (who worked with us last year), Sam (who volunteered with us last year) and Rory who all help make Quercus the best nursery and gardens will be happy to help you with your questions and to find plants in the nursery.

Finally thank you for all your support in all ways and I am really looking forward to seeing and catching up with all our customers soon

I've put together a wee table of winter colour. Doesn't it look cheery? There are Helleborus nigre, snowdrops, 3 different Carex, Bergenia 'Overture', Primroses (in flower already!) Hedera 'Fantasia', Hedera 'Glacier', Ajuga 'Valfreda' and Thymus vulgaris 'Thyme de Provence'. Available to buy when we open on 5th March.

Will there be gold at the end of the rainbow?......

Great to be back in the nursery after a week off and happy to report no damage from all the wild weather we have had. The ground is soggy ( but then it usually is ) I made a start on tidying the large border on the left side of the track up to the nursery. Hellerbores are coming into flower and Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy' has flower buds. Not long until we open so I need to get on it in the next two weeks

Tuesday was a stop start day with the weather, so cold and when it rained it reallly rained, beginning to feel like I will never get the track side border finished! Its so windy too that the leaves I am trying to collect up are blowing everywhere! Ugh! February really has been challenging with the weather, but then it is Scotland in February! January was exceptionally dry and calm but February has flung everything we didn't get in January and more at us over the past two or three weeks. This has slowed progress down in getting the nursery tidied up. But there's nout we can do about the weather but keep wading through the treacle.

A jacket made for two apparently!

It’s that time of year when I start filling up the sales tables ready for opening for the season on 5th March. We got this year’s conifers on Wednesday, sorting them out in the horrendous rain and wind. Most of them have had to stay in crates for now until the weather sorts itself out and I can get them on the tables and staying there! All the colours and shapes as always – golds, blues, greens and variegated, prostrate, uptight, ball shaped, soft and jaggy.

I guess it would have been to much to get to the end of February without any more snow! Thursday was a snow day at home as it snowed most of the day. I don't think there were many people who didn't have snow today. An admin day at home in front of the log burner, at least I can do that while we are still closed!

I did get about 275 info cards updated with new info or new photos, printed out and now just waiting on new lamination pouches arriving in the post, then they will be ready to go out in the stock beds so customers can get info and an idea of what the plants look like in flower and full growth No day is ever wasted

Dandelion field

Despite the snow that was still lying from Thursday Rory and I got lots done on Friday. Bark barrowed up to the long stock bed border which finishes it off. A bag of soil moved from the path in the stock beds, random stuff moved from the sales area and then we started filling the sales area up. Rory brought round a selection of fruit trees, we've never had so many in stock 15 different apples, 2 varieties each of pear, cherry and plum and some fan shaped trees too. Meanwhile I tidied all the plants for the Wildflower table and started filling the grasses table.

Its so exciting to see the sales area filling up ready for opening again. New stock and compost arrives next week too, its all go. Now if only the weather would behave and I could get the garden tidy up finished

Filling up the sales tables ready to open

Into the nursery on Saturday to make up for my snow day on Thursday, at least the weather was dry and calm finally. Its only taken a week to cut back and tidy this border. With all the wild weather its been a bit relentless but I finally got it finished on Saturday plus a top up of bark and some of the faded labels re-written. I am a bit behind in getting the gardens tidied for opening thanks to February’s weather but its not for the want of trying. Still there will be lots of good things to see and buy non the less.

Stachys byzantina 'Silver Carpet', Herniaria glabra, Ranunculus verna 'Brazen Hussy', Helleborus 'Pink Lady', Juncus effusus f spiralis, Stachys (betonica) officinalis 'Hummelo', Hemerocallis ‘Green Flutter’, Geranium peloponnesiacum, Dianthus deltoides, Pulmonaria ‘Blue Ensign’, Ajuga reptans 'Valfredda', Veronica prostrata 'Spode Blue', Polemonium caeruleum subsp caeruleum f albiflorum, Geum 'Karlskaer'.

Helleborus 'Pink Lady'

Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy'

Attack of the seed heads........

I was tidying the scented garden today and there were some seed heads of Actium still in the hedge. Here they are showing perfectly how they have adapted to be dispersed away from the parent plant. With their hooked spines attaching to clothes or animal fur and travel far from home to start a new patch of Lesser Burdock.

Arctium minus

"Lesser Burdock" (Bardog, Burrs - scots native) Part of our wild flower collection, this is the Lesser Burdock. Forming a tall plant with hollow stems topped with brush-like purple flowers which appear from July to September. The bracts of the flower heads end in a burr which attaches itself to clothing and animal fur, allowing the seed to distribute over a large area. Usually found on the edges of woodland and in hedgerows it will tolerate deep shade. You can see it growing in our native garden. It takes two to four years to reach maturity to seed then die, but the large leaves create bare earth beneath for the next generation of seeds to germinate. H 1.5m, S 90cm.

A day off is never really a day off when you run your own business

What a cracking weather day though, felt very spring like, long may it continue

A morning at the hairdresser, gone lighter for spring Biggar was super sunny

Dropped off Viki and I's donations for Ukraine in Peebles on the way past, its not much but its something

Spent the afternoon in the nursery filling our wee shop with all the exciting new stock I bought in for this year. Need a shop extension lol, I will finish it tomorrow then get some photos once I'm happy with it. So many lovely things

Great sunset on the way home

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