By this time last year I had sown most of my seeds. Not this year.  Last Feb it turned very cold and the seeds which had started to put in an appearance were brought into the house and spent over a week on the dining room table.  Much to the amusement of the under gardener.  This year I have waited a bit long and with the weather being as it has been this has been no bad thing.  I am always impatient to get going on the seeds but with the exception of the sweet peas I am sitting on my hands for a bit yet!

I hate, hate, hate treating the garden furniture.  However I have to report that the under gardener and I have now completed the job. I feel rather pleased with myself.  The cold and the wet have made it rather difficult to be in the garden but we have used this opportunity to get ahead with those jobs that hang over you at this time of year.  It is all about trying to get ahead with things before everything starts racing out of the ground. 

I was at a talk by one of the top guys from David Austin Roses.  He said that he pruned his roses during the Christmas holidays.  I have left it a little longer and have just finished the job.  Every year I have a tussle with myself as how severely I prune them.  I check the books and look at the diagrams and still I cannot believe that if I cut them back that hard I will live to regret it.  I don't of course I only regret not cutting them back harder!  Getting that close to plants this time of year never ceases to amaze me as to how much movement there is despite being so cold at the moment.  Spring is just around the corner and there are signs of it all around the garden.  I found myself humming the Christmas song "It the most wonderful time of the year" you see to me that is not so much then as now!