The best thing about having a Hartley greenhouse, especially in the sort of summer we seem to be having, is that you can get away from the weather. This year my peonies were washed away in mid-June and then my roses took a real battering at the end of the month. In fact I’ve never […]

A good garden should shine throughout the year and it should also provide plenty of nectar from early spring until late autumn. This is the time of year to think about late-flowering plants, because many of them come from the southern hemisphere, particularly South America. Flowers tend to be pigment packed, with plenty of reds, […]

I always get wisteria envy at this time of year, because it’s one climber I don’t seem to be able to find the right place for. I’ve planted two in my lifetime and the first one was in a Northamptonshire garden in the late 1980s. I recently went back for a peek and it’s now […]

I do love plants with silvery foliage, the trouble is they’re difficult in Cold Aston because we get a lot of rainfall dumped upon us and silvery plants hate wet. They would much rather grow on thin soil in places like East Anglia – where rainfall is far lighter. However I’ve developed an area, underneath […]

I apologise if you’re a Daphne, but Daphnes are capricious creatures. However I’m not talking people, I’m talking plants. These gloriously scented, shrubby plants, designed for hedonsists as well as gardeners, cast a special sort of magic and they’re an essential part of my garden. However,  just when they’re at their best, they’re likely to […]

If there’s one plant that makes April special in my garden it’s Erythronium californicum  ‘White Beauty’. The creamy flowers have six upturned petals that fly outwards to form a wide lily shape. Seen from above the petals display a cool hint of green as they meet the stem, catching the same glint of green found in the […]

One of the earliest flowers I ever encountered was the magnolia. I spent my childhood in Ealing in West London, then known as the Queen of the Suburbs. It was full of Victorian villas and practically every front garden had a tall magnolia with tulip-shaped, pale-pink flowers in spring. These rose into the air to […]

One of the first things I did when I moved to Cold Aston, some fourteen years ago, was to plant five fruit trees. I chose three apples and two pears, but I’ve had far more success with apples than pears. You see, apples cope well with my chilly conditions and we’ve been eating ‘Pitmaston Pine-apple’ […]

There’s no question about it. I have too many hellebores in my garden. I know this is true because the famous nurseryman, Bob Brown, once came to my garden and exclaimed in basso profundo “too many hellebores Val.” The late Christopher Lloyd, of Great Dixter, went even further and called people like me helle-bores. Fortunately […]

I can’t quite believe that I’ve been at Spring Cottage for twelve years. It took me five years to get to the stage when I felt happy with the garden, but now I’ve realised that I’ve got to start again in some areas because some plants are definitely past their best. I’m not a garden […]

One of the things I use my greenhouse for is raising annuals every spring. One of my very favourites is the marigold because it flowers right through summer until the first frosts. The flowers come in sunny shades of mahogany-red, orange and warm-yellow and these colours attract hoverflies and pollen beetles. The hoverflies look like […]

I don’t think I can ever remember such a glorious June because it’s been warm – even in the wonderfully named Cold Aston! It’s a blessing for me (and the plants) after such a long, cold winter and my roses have really appreciated it. They are better than they’ve ever been at Spring Cottage. Most […]