trough is recovering from a tough winter

Good to see.
My troughs and pots are trying to recover too, some I feel will not. :-( But with some more warmth I may be surprised.

I am always surprised how much looks as if its dead at this time of year and a couple of weeks of good weather and off they go again.

a lovely trough, i wonder if you can still get old sinks, trouble is i don't think i would get one on my bike!

Yes you can still find them Lemondog, in fact last summer I put on a blog on here and mentioned that our local reclamation yard had several in different depths/sizes. I found this one in the garden of my previous house and I put the cement mix on about 23 years ago - so it does last. I also left the steel plug hole in and stood it on paving so it drains really well. I replanted it about 4 years ago. The downside is once its full its impossible to move.

My hubby keeps bringing them home, Old brown ones too.....I covered one with the Hyper Tuffa mixture and it has lasted well...but as you say Drc...impossible to move....

I'd love to have stone troughs and pots but I have to use plastic because of the weight. I do get on the buses with long poles in one hand and large shrubs in the other but stone vessels are a different matter...I don't often get them"right" first time, either so I need to be able to handle them (on my own). I ruined the suspension of my last car carrying too many slabs in it - no car now! :o)