Is Spring just around the corner?

What a winter we have all had this year! It has been quite a shock, the severity of the frosts that we have had here. Just before Christmas I was talking about how early some of the first Rhodo's were this season, well they certainly got put on hold, but they are looking good again now!

In the lower part of the walled garden, which is the area where the snow always hangs around longest, the temperature certainly got as low as minus 5 degrees maybe lower! It has been a bit of a disappointment as we have lost a few plants that we were quit attached to, the most upsetting being the Echium candicans, they look stone dead to me at the moment. However it does seem that the Echium pininana have survived.

Surprisingly my favourite succulent, the purple Aeonium, that lives in a terracotta pot in a recess in the south facing buttress wall does seen to be alive still!

Much of our time, so far this year, has been spent working with Hydrangeas mostly pruning old overgrown areas. I know that really it's a bit too early yet but when you are doing restorative work, rather than annual maintenance, the timing is not as important, as if you do it when you have the most time.

As well as pruning we have done a bit of thinning out, many of the plants just love the conditions here so much - the acidity and the high rainfall! They sucker a lot, so I had to get in and remove a few as it was like a thicket. In the summer when they were in flower I went through and named them all, so we'll be able to sort out the colours into better blocks using the spares to replant elsewhere in a new bed.

At this point I just like to remember the quote in Ken Cox's recent book 'Gardens in Scotland' that the Hydrangeas at Torosay are the bluest that he has ever seen !

I cant wait till they start to flower again!