Message Board - Weather: Thank goodness for the frost

Like everybody else I haven't been able to get outside in my garden and do the annual pruning and cutting back because of the weather. I finally got outside this weekend, only to find a lot of buds on many plants were trying to burst open.

'Oh bother' I thought, or words to that extent. 'The saps rising, I've missed my chance!' But fortunately we had two good hits of frost over the weekend, so I'm hoping the plants will slow down a bit now and let me cut them back. After all the plants in question are trying to open about a month too early.

I've got a similar problem owing to visitors at weekends and my wife's insistence that I should be indoors exchanging pleasantries, when all I really want to be doing is cutting back my shrubs, hedges, and trees.

Hopefully we'll have a bit more frost to knock the early growth on the head.