I may have inadvertently stumbled upon a way of getting tender plants through the winter – bury them in your compost heap!                                                                                        This fuchsia which flowered beautifully in it’s pot all last summer was unceremoniously ‘dumped’ into the compost in October followed by all manner of debris and detritus, dead and forgotten as far as I was concerned…..until yesterday.

As I was turning the heap and adding loads of dead grass and thatch from the early spring lawn scarifying I came across this sad, but obviously alive specimen, struggling back to life. My inclination was to chop it up and put it back in the compost heap but a little voice was telling me to see if it survives. The little voice won. It’s now split into two, snail eggs removed, roots washed and pruned and back in pots in the greenhouse. Updates to follow!