April 6th 2008

[Mark]

I would love to get the variegated bananas out of the poly to give me some room ( big pots take up too much room) but there's now way I am going to risk losing them to a late frost......ans we will get one ,,,mark my words

[SteveP]

I used to live in a horrible frost pocket and the worst spring temperature my garden experienced was -5C on April 25th!!, can't quite remember the year. Spring had been mild to that date and even broadleaf trees, oak, horse chestnut and the like were knocked back. Some more ornamental largish trees did not leaf again until the following spring.

Whilst that year was exceptional, every year some so called hardy plants, climbing hydrangea, fatsia, ornamental acers etc were knocked back and were not really worth growing. The irony of this is that Chammies and Trachies were never troubled by these late frosts.

So the moral of this post is that if you do move house do not, even if there are many other reasons for liking the house, choose a property at the bottom of a valley in a rural or even semi-rural location. The temperature difference can be huge, up -4 to 5C colder than up the hill.

Fleece at the ready, because as Mark says it is almost certain that we will experience one more 'decent' frost this year.

There, I bet thats really cheered you all up

Steve

[Adrian]

I recon we might have seen the back of winter, Ive checked the 10 dayer and nothing much to worry about there and that takes us past mid April so cant see much after that to be honest, not down here anyway.

[Frank]

ans we will get one ,,,mark my words

Oh have faith Mark, my bubble wrap went last night in the greenhouse to give more light again. I'm with Adrian, we may still get cold nights but it's warm enough in the daytime now. I haven't emptied out the plants just yet but may start moving the ferns today as keeping them watered is more of an issue for me now.
Worse case I will have to just drag stuff back in again ......
Then again Royal Windsor may have a chillier climate