On the basis that absolutely no one has ever been to this blog - I am going to dwell on an emotive and difficult subject - the outside temperature. OH No

It has long struck me that there is a strange (and not very realistic) element to the furious debate that surrounds and affects us all.

My personal opinion, having spent my life outside  in all weathers - not quite a fair weather gardener, yet -is that we tend to define seasons and weather patterns from afar and this is determined by a distant inner psyche. Each season conjuring up images from our childhood -possibly- of how they will be, therefore we believe we know how they will behave. Summer; will be sunny, autumn; golden, spring; the rebirth and warming, winter; snowy, with a bit of Father Christmas thrown in.

This hope is of course facile - we don’t want to be disappointed, but nonetheless important because it always gives us an incentive to move forward. We rue the coming of winter but then remember the snow and frosts sticking to the ground and the branches of twigs and trees lit by the purity of the winter sun. These are powerful reminders of the awaiting beauty. We forget the endless days of drizzle and dampness and cold. (in the same way,  it is impossible to remember how the countryside looks in summer when looking at it from the depths of winter).

History has an important part to play as well.
My Wife's Granny- unfortunately no longer with us - was born exactly 100 years ago last week in Paris. The Seine had broken it's banks and the city was under water when she arrived, and a hundred years later that same possibility is still very much with us, but it would be viewed quite differently now I’m sure. http://parisunderwater.blogspot.com/
A great, no, gigantic Oak Tree stands in the garden next to one I hope to start designing soon, it was most possibly planted just after the great storm of 1703 and it is a beauty. The total destruction of that storm which lasted for a week was manifest. Had we suffered the same storm now - we would be digging deep into our pockets to find the solution. The great Oak is not likely to have survived if it was of any size of consequence before that- nothing around here did.  Followed by the sulphourous summer the following year. Cracking history and reading...
http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=19672&amid=19672

This was the period of the Little Ice Age, and it appears that we have been pulling out of this gradually for a couple of hundred years http://www.sciencemag.org/
So unlikely that global warming would have had much to do with it as would be the conclusion today.

The other strange factor in all this is the demon Carbon Dioxide. http://www.biotopics.co.uk/plants/photsy.html
Perhaps I was taught incorrectly at school that C02 is one of the three crucial elements to plant growth and health. Surely more C02 means bigger plants - better crops - more abundance, we will probably need in times to come with the inevitable population increase.
Is it C02 that is really the culprit?- what on earth is that agenda all about? Ever actually thought about why you have a greenhouse?
The great problem in my mind is not C02 but bad housekeeping.
We are bad citizens of the planet.
Unfortunately the fanaticism that dotes upon carbon emitting is the recipe for our next great war, and it will probably happen.

The thing that gets me is the balance of the argument - it is so contrived in the favour of there being real climate change (there is always real climate change, pretty much every day) from TV, all the news channels, politicians, newspapers - wherever you turn, that if you want to seek your own balance on this issue have a look at Ian Wishart’s book 'Air Con', and then make your mind up. http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/04/free-preview-of-ian-wisharts-new-book-air-con.html
Actually just get it from Amazon.

Me - well as Geoff the old labourer on the farm would say in a broad Suffolk accent 'Boy, when I was young, the winters was much colder and the summers was much hotter' -
I'm still confused, aren't we all talking about the weather too seriously, surely it's small talk...
Enough rambling - I'll never dwell on others being brain washed again, time to wash my tools and prepare for Spring, Hoorah!

Visit the web site for some updated quality, peace and tranquillity... http://www.gardeneye.co.uk/
(Google still haven't picked it up yet so plonk it in the main browser - it's worth it)

The snow.
It really is beautiful. The road into Rye was truly a rare painting, with the the snow enshrining every small branch and twig in a breathtaking avenue, it was enough to make you skid off the road. The Tobogganing was terrific in the car and also with the kids on the slopes although I sympathized with the old British Rail who so famously cancelled their trains due to 'the wrong kind of Snow' and I'm sure that was the case this year - with the sledging, it was slightly the wrong kind of snow unless you had a piste basher... and that was it, that's as good as it gets...
And no one in their right mind could look out of their window at 1ft of snow and consider that 'I really must get the garden sorted out'. It doesn't work like that and you can bet that when the first daffs poke their noses out of the ground we will be besieged with calls.
So a gloriously beautiful time but ultimately frustrating for us indoor outdoorers, I would say however that this is the best time to plan your garden - so that when those daffs do come you might have a garden for them to glory in.

Well a sample - Hollyhocks still on fire! and Marigolds in the veg patch

Video failed to download for some reason.

I have just been to see a client who has seriously caught the gardening bug. Living in a Sir Edwin Lutyens house with a wonderful artistic heritage he has built himself an amazing garden.
One of the things in the garden that struck me was a 100m border about 3m wide that he himself has built with the planting style of the great Gertrude Jekyll naturally, and it is my job to get the borders weeded and sorted out.
What struck me is how dated the borders are in these times. There were no grasses, no annuals or biennials and none of the formal shrubbery/topiary to define the different topics in the garden and no roses amongst the perrenials
I am still enjoying the garden at home even having a foxglove in flower! (in October), the grasses looking dazzling, the odd rose still in bloom, my Irises in flower and the cosmos' still going strong whilst his is ready to put away for the year.
I like the mix and the longevity of the beauty. I'm tempted to post this months flowers to prove my point!
A garden is everyone's experiment - long may it be that way...