Finally today (December 28) I started to see green in my garden after nearly two weeks of thick snow. The Big Thaw has started and everything is dripping and soggy.

Touring the garden it seems that it has weathered the snow and cold quite well although there are signs that some of the fencing has taken a battering and will need replacing.

Most of my patio plants seem to have survived which, considering temperatures dropped to minus 10 degrees one night is most heartening, particularly as I did not wrap any of them in fleece material as I should have done. Early December seemed to flash by and before I could get the fleece out the snow had arrived.

Happily my favourite Skimmia Rubella shrub in a pot has survived and even looks quite perky which is extraordinary in the circumstances.

And our new Viburnum tinus Ladybird in a planter (a recent gift) seems to be coping with the low temperatures.

Viburnum tinus

Even the birds seem to be chirpy again now the snow has gone. The Ultiva Gold mix feed we have been putting out each day seems to have gone down well and our usual bird ‘neighbours’ seem to be up and about with no obvious ill-effects after the snow.

Now we can see the garden again we have been inspired to start planning our garden and allotment for next spring.

Magazines and websites  list lots of Things To Be Done in the Garden in December but somehow cruising the web for new fruit varieties to try in 2011 seems so much more appealing than scrubbing seed trays or covering clumps of rhubarb at the allotment with buckets or terracotta pots to force early stems!

So here’s to 2011 and the return of spring! A Happy Gardening New Year.

Well we have finally finished the big Tidy Up in the garden and the shed. Somehow, with the kids ‘helping’ it seemed to take much longer than scheduled but it is done now.

We managed to find space for all the geranium tubs and they look really pretty together at one end of the conservatory. However, when we moved them we also took various spiders, snails and other insects with us who quickly decided that they liked their new, warm quarters and started to explore!

Having ejected the ‘foreigners’ and cleaned off the worst of the earth etc from the terracotta pots they do look really nice and it was worth the back ache from moving them!

We grew a wide variety of bedding this summer and removing the dead plants has left the garden looking rather bare and sad.

To that end, we have decided to grow more shrubs since they do not need to be taken up each autumn and do add colour to the garden in winter.

We have been doing our research and have decided on some bright Azaleas which we plan to plant in clumps for maximum effect.

Other shrubs we have selected include Forest Flame Pieri, which we may grow in a pot for maximum flexibility and Helleboris Niger, with its pretty white flowers.

In any event, the garden should look brighter when we have finished, even if the shrubs are not in flower. Instant gardening at its best!