As of today, 23rd March 2026, our nursery shop has reopened.

As you will have seen, we suffered some damage during the snow fall of January, when the slow lay deep (up to 3 feet high in drifts) and caused all the minor roads round here to close. We had no services for 2 weeks. While we have had snow falls before, this was the worst I can ever remember, in the length of time it took to clear. All through that time the temperature varied around freezing, slightly above during the daytime, and slightly below at night. Snow built up heavily on the roof, and was impossible to clear (it is 4 metres high). This caused some thin gaps to open up in the greenhouse roof and, with the greenhouse heating set to keep inside temperatures at 4 degrees or above, meltwater to pour in, flooding the central benches.

With it being so cold, it was impossible to dry the plants out again. We have lost around 1000 plants from the collection, mainly Weingartia / Sulcorebutia, and some of them very old plants. This represents about 20% of the whole collection so it has been a major disaster.

It is now spring (thank heavens) and the last few weeks have been spent collecting seed, taking cuttings, and buying seed from the main suppliers, in order to start the process of trying to replace plants which were lost. We will get there in the end.

The greenhouse roof is now repaired, but next autumn we will be installing water-shed plastic over the benches, so that any water that does get through the roof will fall onto the walkways between benches rather than on the benches themselves.