Nursery work progress and getting festive

Well, that was a cold day and we ended up not spending the whole day at the nursery. When the cement and sand you need to use for the new tunnel path is frozen solid and goes thunk in the barrow when you empty it out the bag, you know that job is not going to happen today. We did get the rest of the slabs over from the old tunnel site and the rest of the wooden path edge finished in the new tunnel. A discussion about trolley turning circles and how wide paths need to be was useful before we admitted defeat and went home and put the Christmas decorations up. But how beautiful is that sparkly frost on the plants.

Rab the robin is always there somewhere

Rosa rugosa

The Railway garden decorated with frost

The herb garden

Not how you usually see the stock beds

One of my favourite winter jobs is to clean and sort all the seeds gathered from the nursery gardens over summer and autumn. Having hung in paper bags in the office to dry for a few months they are now ready to sort. Stripping the seeds from the plant material is often an involved process, the seeds needing teased out or separated and sometimes its very straight forward, shake the seed pods and out they fall. I find it therapeutic, contemplative and as often with gardening, a way of looking to the future.

Once cleaned, they go into paper or glassine bags until they get sown in spring, ready to add to the nursery stock list in the future.

Needing to stock up on glassine bags, I found these compostable bags online, which is a big tick for our efforts to be as sustainable as possible. They come from Simplelifeco UK, so check out what else they offer if you need sustainable packaging. I love the wee worm on the packaging too

Seeds cleaned and in their packets

Filed for sowing in spring

I found some new eco friendly glassine bags to use for the seeds

A few hours in my own garden last week, planting more of my Epimedium collection in the front garden and into pots in the back garden, 22 now. I also swapped a few plants around in the big borders in the front garden which weren't quite working this year. Some were too tall to be near the front so are now swapped to the back and some were just being too enthusiastic!

Planting Epimediums around the rocks and acer in the front garden

It's not always hard work and stress

Today I was potting up the bulbs that didn't sell in October to sell in spring and cleaning and sorting the seed we gathered from the gardens in autumn. These will be sown in the polytunnel in spring, two relaxing planning for next year jobs. I also started lifting the leaves in the sales area, hopefully finished at the end of the week

Earlier in the year I made an acer and fern from paper kits. I got this marigold kit at the same time and finally got round to it this week. I think I knew it was going to try my very limited patience and I was right my worsening eye sight and less dexterous fingers did not help. But they are made and will be making their way out to the dolls house garden in daylight

Beautiful sky over the house

We definitely got the best of the weather when we visited North Berwick last week. A walk on the beach, a lovely lunch at Herringbone, very dog friendly, great food and lovely friendly staff. A look around the Re-use hub and some purchases made, this one is all antiques and collectables, so lots of interesting things to find. Almost the last of our christmas shopping done, as always, all done in local independent shops while we were away on holiday, in Peebles and North Berwick. A quick whizz round Peebles will see the last stragglers bought and sorted

Thank youto our dear friends Andrew and Linda for a lovely Christmas evening.

Great food and great company as always

From my garden here at home, a study of all the ivies I have growing, 8 in this small garden would you believe! Technically 7 as part of the Goldheart has reverted back to it’s species Hedera helix. Great for winter colour and flower arranging, ivies are well worth growing, especially the smaller more well behave varieties.

I’ve painted these over the past week, working on one or two at a time, building up the layers. I think I might even have managed to impress myself!

Behind the scenes - great progress in the new tunnel on Sunday getting the path started. The last tunnel didn't have a proper path so we excited, easily pleased lol. But it will the new tunnel much safer, easier to use and no mud!

14 slabs laid, 6 to go down another day. A good job for a drizzly day, at least the sand wasn't frozen today. As always we were supervised by Maisie.

Looking good

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