troughs outside

All looks very efficient.....

Are those Hepaticas in the middle box Bjs? Your boxes are still looking very smart.

Really ingenious!

Sheila
there are a lot of different plants including Hepaticas yes plus Cyclamen intaminatum, Soldanella hungarica lots of seedlings from the Soldanella.

very well organised BJS.

Thank you Bjs. I realised there was other plants in the box its good to know what they are too. That cyclamen is supposed to be hardy down to -20deg. but it is small so I can see the benefit of having it in a container. I got some new iris retics - Painted Lady and Natascha the other day and plan to grow them in pots maybe even enter them in a show next year.

well done you

A good job done there Brian !

I wish it was well done me. I always seem to be 'running behind the coo's tail' or in English 'playing catch up'.

Lovely, they look well protected from the wildlife. Brian, may I ask you about labels? Do yours fade, or should I say, what's the best system in your opinion?

Dawn thats a difficult one I suppose i have tried the lot over the last 50 years no one type has ever proved 100% over a long period,in the garden for sure they have to be strong and slate ones have proved pretty good although my four legged friend has snapped a few of them off,recent ones I have purchased being a lot thinner than earlier ones.best ones were from an old slate mine.
Plastic ones I use a lot in pots they are throw away after a few years either because they become brittle or because I have killed the plant .
I have some much better larger plastic ones that I print on with Dymo tape they tend to be specials as that is quite expensive
have used the black scratch on ones in the past they lasted but things pinched them they are quite light.Andrew seems to get on alright with them.but don't think he has badgers,foxes squirrels to name a few to contend with
one last thought the slate ones can be pretty large that is good because it means I can write large on them and I can read them when I forget what I have planted.lol

Very neat, Brian.. added to GoYpedia.

Brian I tried slate ones. They look lovely but they do tend to break. Anything I wrote on them, scratched really, vanished too. I got a Brother P-touch which prints the label on tape with a peel off backing. We took down some metal venetian blinds recently and I cut them up and am hoping the labels will last a reasonable time stuck on to them. Apart from blackbirds and squirrels the bane of my life is the family of jackdaws who live in next doors unused chimney. They don't just pull labels up they take them away.

Thank you Brian for your label advice. Interesting. I've bought myself a Dymo label embosser and I will stick them onto plastic labels, see how that goes. I think writing on the plastic labels depends on how porous they are, most labels seem really shiny, hence the ink wipes off.