Spring Cottage Ramblings
Val Bourne is an award-winning writer and winner of The Garden Media Guild’s Digital Gardening writing of the year 2023, awarded to her due to content produced for Hartley Botanic. This joins her six other major GMC awards, including; Journalist of the Year in 2020 and 2014; Columnist of the Year in 2018; and News Story of the Year in 2016.
She writes regularly for many publications and she’s a life-long organic gardener with a real interest in wildlife. She gardens in the cold Cotswolds, growing flowers, fruit, and vegetables – with the aid of a Hartley Botanic Greenhouse. Although bought for ornamentals, the Best Beloved has commandeered it for tomatoes and peppers!
I am leaf picking and it’s a very monotonous (and back-breaking) task and I’ve spent days getting muddy and I have tramp’s nails – no offence to men of the road intended here. My nails are ringed in black grime and impossible to clean! I wear them as a badge of honour though. It’s […]
It’s November and we’ve just had two weeks of what is known as anticyclonic gloom and it’s produced warm, still grey days that weigh down the soul. In fact, sun has been in short supply all year round here and the plants have definitely noticed. My nerines, for instance, have failed to put on their […]
Winter is knocking on the door once again and there’s lots to do in the garden in preparation. The trouble is you can never predict what winter will bring and I would like every gardener to be provided with their own personal crystal ball – particularly now that our climate’s so changeable. What will the […]
I share a trait with the late Queen Elizabeth, only one you understand. Just like our late, and much-missed majesty, I religiously tune into the weather forecast. And just like her, I love it when Tomasz Schafernaker is in charge. It’s rumoured that the late Queen Elizabeth developed quite a crush on this softly spoken, […]
There’s one day of the year that fills me with terror and it’s our village fete! It’s always held on the first Saturday of August and I grow plants for the plant stall, but however many I manage I am riven with guilt. You see, I haven’t managed to make chocolate and coffee cakes for […]
British summertime seems to have reverted to the normal state of play because it’s wet and not that warm. Wimbledon was a washout, for the first time in many years. The rowers at Henley Regatta were wet before they entered the somewhat polluted water and staycation holiday makers can be seen dodging the puddles. I’m […]
I feel as though I’ve been climbing up a very steep mountain, well more of a hill really, and I’ve got to the summit and admired the view and cooed and now I’m plodding down again – with an air of sheer relief. Yes, I’ve been to this year’s Chelsea Flower Show and I’ve seen […]
May is the perfect month to plant those slightly tender, late performers such as salvias, penstemons, fuchsias and pennisetums, because they need to develop good root systems before winter arrives. All too often, nurseries sell these late-summer jewels in autumn when they look magnificent. However, there’s not much chance of them overwintering if they’re planted […]
I picked up a copy of The Times the other day to be met by a headline declaring that the wet weather we’ve been having is affecting our mental health. Yes, we are all feeling under the weather Mr Times, but we’ll all recover once the sun shines again. And so will my garden. It’s […]
It’s time to get sowing and growing, because spring is in the air. In the last few days, I’ve had a cup of tea in the garden, my face warmed by the sun for the first time this year. My ginger tomcat Frank has been rolling about, with his legs in the air, and this […]
It’s cold in Cold Aston and my two lovely daughters do a wonderful Stella Gibbons act in the same sort of northern accent you get on the Hovis advert – where the young lad pushes the bike up Gold Hill in Shaftesbury in Dorset. I have trouble propelling myself up that steep hill, let alone […]
We’re in the bleak midwinter in the village of Cold Aston, high in the Cotswolds. And yet, there’s solace in the garden despite the bitter easterly wind and the threat of snow lingering in the pink-tinged clouds. We do snow well in Cold Aston, it falls thick and deep. However, I already have one witch […]
