I have just ordered my spring plug plants from Gardening Direct‘s Spring 2010 catalogue and it has really put a smile on my face. It has been so nice planning the garden inside a warm house whilst outside it is still so bitterly cold. Having been blown away with how wonderful my garden looked last year I am so excited about using plug plants for my second summer.

Following on from last years successes I have ordered Gardening Direct’s Begonias, Impatiens, Petunias and Geraniums. I am trying out Verbanas, Marigolds and Lobelias for the first time along with the Echinacea Collection, which are a collection of bee loving plants.

Looking through the catalogue and planning the garden for the summer months certainly proved a successful task for me in brightening my gardening spirit through all this cold weather.  I am probably more excited about the garden this year than I was last year as I know what to expect in terms of how easy it is to grow the plug plants on. Knowing that even I can have huge successes with the plants does make it significantly easier to plan the garden.

My pictures of the garden last year have really reminded me of how beautiful it did look.

I have also ordered the Potato Successional Collection as I loved the taste of my homegrowns last year but unfortunately didn’t quite get to grips with the whole 1^st Early, 2^nd Early and Main Crops system. So yet again I am going to use Gardening Directs expertise completely to my advantage and take full credit for all of my successes!

The snow has at last melted and I have carried out a quick inspection of the garden. Despite my initial fears of everything being lost to the snow I am quite pleased that it is not as bad as I first thought. There have been quite a few casualties along the way but another benefit of using plug plants is that you do get a large quantity of plants so in the event of some losses there are always survivors.

We have, of course been feeding the birds throughout the snow and it has been nice to see them in the garden. There are a number of cats in my area and although I would love to get a bird table for the garden I think that this would be far too tempting for the cats. I have had a look at some of the enclosed bird feeders from Garden Bird Supplies which look like the perfect solution but am wondering if the fact that there are cats mulling around is enough to put off any bird despite the banquet of food being served.

I love the way everything looks so calm and pretty on the first day with snow but I know that once the big thaw occurs the garden will look drastically different and I am not looking forward to it.

The snow we had just before Christmas left my garden a bit worse for wear. Despite my best attempts to clear snow off a lot of the plants only the primroses really came out unscathed. Some of the violas have suffered badly whilst others are thriving. The window boxes homing some of the violas and wall flowers are looking particularly good but the hanging basket with the pansies aren’t faring so well. I don’t think my raspberries have survived but am unsure if that is down to the cat or the snow as they have just completely disappeared.

With two children I am finding it hard to spend as much time in the garden over the winter months as I did throughout the summer. I did however spend a very enjoyable hour in the garden with the kids today making a snow woman which we are very proud of.