Welcome to our new catalogue for 2010. It is ninety two years since my Grandfather Clement Trenear began growing plants to sell. The world that we live in is a far more complex place than when he began, but the wish to make a garden is just the same as then. To transform a patch of weeds and earth into a place that pleases all the senses, where colour, form, perfume and movement beguile you and capture your heart, this is the same now as it was for so many generations that have gardened before us.

Gardening has many fashions, they come and go. I believe that we should follow our own intuition when planting a garden, soil, position and the compass dictate certain areas where some plants will thrive and others fail. Remember most plants do not mind being lifted from the earth and replanted in a place that gives us more visual pleasure. The Victorian gardener Mrs Earle wrote in her Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, in 1897, how she grew many Asters in her 'reserve' garden and at the end of July lifted them along with early Chrysanthemums and Phloxes. These were then 'brought to fill up bare places in the border', as long as the plants are well watered before lifting and after planting they will transplant perfectly.

Our garden gives us pleasure in all the seasons, even when all seems asleep some small leaves burst through from the celandines, and the snowdrops point their leaf tips at us. So when at last we are reminded of Shakespeare's words 'April hath put a spirit of youth in everything' the great 'orchestra' of plant life overwhelms us with its symphony.

Here at Southview in June the garden seems to take on its own life, quite divorced from our work. The pinks are in flower in our collection raised bed and the main border is at it's best.

We are opening for more days this year, from April we are open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 10am until 4.00pm. We are closed from Saturday 12th June. Remember we are a nursery not a garden centre.

So finally forgive me for returning to the symphony of the seasons that blow through our gardens, for they are four great movements that give stillness, exuberance, vivacity and gentle winding down to make our gardening years a joyous panoply.

Happy planting.

Mark and Elaine Trenear.