After years of relatively mild winters, Scottish gardens and gardeners are for the second year reeling from the shock of the coldest temperatures since 1919 (-21.2 deg C at Altnaharra). By early December, most of the UK was covered with snow, lying 50cm deep in many places and over a metre on the Scottish mountains. Great conditions for skiers, not for plants and gardens. Commercial crops of cauliflower and broccoli have been devastated and this will mean scant availability, importing and higher prices. So what of the domestic garden?
The Beechgrove team of Jim McColl, Carole Baxter, Lesley Watson, George Anderson and Carolyn Spray return to find out. In the first programme in the series, the team take stock of winter damage at Beechgrove, search for hopeful signs of spring and new growth, dust off the gardening gloves, get going and prove it's not all doom and gloom in the garden.
Despite being further north than Moscow, stunning West Coast Inverewe Garden near Poolewe is famed for its exotic plants. Inverewe nestles in the care and shelter of the Gulf Stream and unlike the rest of Scotland they don't expect to have hard winters or any damage. Jim visits this beautiful (usually) temperate garden to see what the winter has meant to a northern hemisphere garden full of southern hemisphere plants.
The 70 acres of woodland walks at Cambo Estate in Fife in February are fantastic enough during the day - awash with snowdrops, snowflakes and aconites. But they become even more spectacular at night when the woods come alive with light and sound in 'Snowdrops by Starlight'. Carolyn talks to Lady Catherine Erskine and two of the artists involved in creating garden sculptures also incorporated into this son et lumière.
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