Winter Gardening

My old body is tired and aching. Today was our first 9 to 5 day in the garden for ages. Winter gardening is by and large a case of snatching an hour here and there, a half day if the weather allows but a full day in the garden during the winter is very rare. …

When All At Once I Saw A Crowd!

It really is a case of being the only show in town - the snowdrops are what are in mind - and when there are no other plants competing for attention in the garden their significance is, perhaps, magnified...but not much, to be honest, for I do find them very attractive, interesting and I look …

The Keepers of Eden

This book recounts an extraordinary love story in remarkable times. It also brings home the cataclysmic disruption to society brought about by the two world wars. WW1 all but wiped out an entire generation of young men and, in a society with an numerical imbalance between the sexes, left a generation of young women with …

The Gardens at Rousham

Rousham is one of the great gardens of Britain, a national treasure of international importance. The manor house was built around 1635 and the grounds originally developed by Charles Bridgeman were remodelled by the gardening genius William Kent in the 1730s. It has remained in the ownership of the original family since first built and …

First Snowdrop Garden of the Year

We were encouraged by the number of snowdrops coming into flower in our own garden over the last fortnight, thanks to a very welcome mild spell, that we decided it might well be time to hit the road and have our first snowdrop garden visit of the year - to Altamont Gardens. The approach to …

It’s Snowdrop Season!

The days of a slow dribble of snowdrop varieties opening through late autumn into early winter are now gone. The first snowdrops of the season opened in early October, a number of cultivars of the Greek species, Galanthus reginae olgae. Galanthus elwesii 'Barnes' and 'Earliest of All' carried the show along through November with 'Faringdon …

On the Road Again

Don't worry, I haven't left Willie Nelson get into my head but there was a certain "can't wait to get on the road again" since Christmas, a need to get out of the house for a while, to enjoy some fresh air, a change of scene, a break from routine and a visit to a …

Looking for it.

It was a miserable day, a day when the sun never broke through the clouds, when the rain never stopped, though it did ease for short spells. It was a day when we thought defrosting the freezer and tidying the garage were worth doing to pass the time. I went for a quick walk around …

Was This A Bad Idea?

It struck me as a good idea, fitting somewhere among those pleasant end-of-year recollections and the equally pleasant though generally futile New Year resolutions that will rarely be implemented; a gentle way to pass some time on a day of unwelcome weather which confined us to the house. Yes, I thought it would be a …