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!
Midsummer’s here and the garden’s struggling, due to the hottest June since 1976. I remember 1976, with mixed feelings. I was pregnant with my youngest daughter Zoe, having had my oldest one in July 1975 in equally scorching weather. In fact, I have history with high temperatures, because my mother always said (through slightly gritted […]
Most gardens peak in June and I was reminded of the fact when I had to take a sudden detour due to a closed road. There were five of us in the car and it was a glorious June evening and we found ourselves meandering through the villages along the River Windrush towards Burford in […]
At the beginning of May I was extremely lucky to be invited to see the gardens at Worcester College in Oxford’s city centre. It was a perfect May afternoon and the stone walls were dripping with wisteria, so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The lawns were like green velvet and I’m sure that […]
It has been a glorious spring, with cloudless sunny day after sunny day. The lovely Tomasz Schafernaker, the BBC weatherman and self-taught artist, announced each sparkling day with a twinkle in his eye. Well, for the first two weeks anyway. And then he began to look a bit more apologetic, shifty even, about the lack […]
When I was a young thing in my twenties, I spent some time in a lowly position in plant breeding and we worked on producing better cauliflower varieties. Each cauliflower in the field, and there were thousands of them to assess, was individually scored for depth of curd, colour and rice-like quality. The latter was […]
I have a VERY soft spot for the daffodil because they brighten up March, a month that often promises spring but doesn’t always deliver sadly. Almost twenty years ago, after moving to Spring Cottage in December 2005, I was thrilled to see lots of daffodils popping up in the garden because it had appeared to […]
Gardeners beat to a different rhythm, so whilst most of the population were firmly focused on Christmas Day, turkey and Christmas pud, I was waiting for the shortest day on December 21st. Once that was over, the days would lengthen once again and the garden would revive like Sleeping Beauty freshly kissed by her Prince. […]
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 […]
