A DRY AND COLD WEEK IN THE GARDEN

Dry and cold weather persisted for most of the week with east winds blowing to gale force with a -10° to -15° wind chill factor. Gardening for the most part was confined to the green house or potting shed and gave me a chance to sow any seed that was left in storage.

The last batch of seed from the Scottish Rock Garden Club arrived at a very convenient time and was all sown the following day. These were all forms of hardy of cyclamen that I had ordered from the surplus seed supply which are made up after the main orders has been dispatched. While you don't have much choice on what you get you can order certain batch numbers which guarantees that at least you get the species if not the particular varieties you want. I did not bother to soak them as most of them will not germinate until the autumn now and I have enough to be going on with at moment anyway.

In the alpine house the Lewisias are already busting into flower and love the dry cold weather with low humidity. All the allionii and Pubescens Primulas are still in bloom and I have been quite busy with my new digital camera (Fuji Finepix 602) trying to get good shots of all the new hybrids.

In the other alpine house the cyclamen flowers are end to end and provide some nice shots for the camera, just a pity there is no way to record the perfume. Sorting out the different forms of Cyclamen Coum is a daunting task, as no sooner have I sorted one batch when one or two in another batch closely resembles those of the previous one.

In the garden when I dared to venture out suitably clad for the weather conditions, the bulbs are looking very clean and pristine with no splashes on the flowers, perfect photography material if only I had some shelter from the wind.

I did eventually managed to provide shelter and to get some lovely shots of Galanthus Sophie North and G. Wendy's gold. The latter really is yellow in spite of some reports you might read to the contrary.

Seed pots have to be checked on a daily basis and any the show signs of germination are brought into the alpine house for shelter, for while they don't mind low temperatures they do hate cold easterly winds which quickly dehydrates and decimates them beyond recovery.