TRYING TO STAY POSITIVE!

Hello - another grotty week on the weather front. I think most of us are well and truly fed up with this winter - customers coming into the nursery this week, speak of the frustration of not being able to get jobs completed that should have been done before Christmas - and it is starting to get them down!

It is easy to feel rather negative and down-hearted about this weather - but there is much to look forward too - and things are happening and starting to come into flower out there - so let's put the weather to one side and cheer ourselves up with some nice winter-bloomers here on the nursery at the moment!!

These photos are of three shrubs looking - and smelling - particularly good at the moment. The first on the left is WINTERSWEET - CHIMONANTHUS PRAECOX - if you have never smelt the flower of this plant - then you really have not enjoyed the fullness of winter gardening!! It has a scent unlike any other plant I know - sweet,spicy and heavy - an astonishing scent really from such a small flower!

The photo below is of one of my favourite winter-flowering shrubs - CHRISTMAS BOX - SARCOCOCCA CONFUSA - a delightful evergreen - flowering a little later than normal due to the cold weather - but again - a really strong scent - quite pervasive and lingering in the air on still days.

The last photo below left is another handsome evergreen - the SILK-TASSEL BUSH - GARRYA ELLIPTICA. This is one on the lovely CATKIN side of the plant world - people are strangely snobby about catkins - but I think they are jolly pretty!! Just look at all the HAZELS in the hedgerows at the moment - again in winter 2009 - they had all finished flowering by now - but due to all that white stuff - they are only now starting to get going this year. And you know what the very best thing about them is?? - six months after those catkins - edible nuts will appear - so you can't go wrong!!

THERE NOW - WHO SAID CATKINS AIN'T PRETTY!!

The snowdrops and the aconites are approaching their peak - and the little dwarf Cyclamen coum has been in flower for weeks -and very soon the Hellebores will be starting - so as I said earlier - there is much to look foward too - just stay positive!!

On a more practical note - we are now SOLD OUT of plums,greengages and damsons - and our HEDGING stocks are reducing daily - so if you are going to get any BARE-ROOT HEDGING OR SOFT FRUIT planted this winter - THE CLOCK IS TICKING - AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

SO UNTIL NEXT TIME - STAY POSITIVE!

RICHARD