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As the shoots of spring tentatively emerge only to be dashed again by another blizzard, the Beechgrove Garden is back, ever young in its 35th season. The first in a new series sees Jim McColl, Carole Baxter, George Anderson and our own new spring shoot Chris Beardshaw examining how the ravages of winter have left the garden and, despite the weather, what developments have been made and are to come.

George Anderson also visited Dunskey Gardens near Stranraer in February, when it was open for The Snowdrop Festival. The Dunskey snowdrops are world famous and were sold at Covent Garden in the 50s, 60s and 70s for Valentine's Day; being some of the earliest flowering in the UK until the demise of the 'paddy', the overnight sleeper train to Euston. For the galanophile, the delights include 43 named varieties, some of them with big names such as Galanthus 'Fred's Giant', Galanthus 'Robin Hood', and Galanthus 'Sickle'.

Carolyn Spray takes on what is one of the top ten garden problems in our postbag - a shady border. In this case Linda Chandler in Rosyth has a small patch where the sun don't shine that is so bad that she has given up and laid astroturf. Carolyn transforms the space with pots and plants in an economical but colourful way.