Writing: ink, tea and neckache.
On cushions, caterpillars, cats and fidgeting....
Wait, wait and wait a little longer...
On the joy of not cutting back in autumn.
Seed-brained...
Several years ago I hosted a propagation workshop and we explored the topic of growing plants from seed. I talked about seeds waiting for the right moment to germinate, knowing that winter had passed, measuring the temperature or daylength, and sensing when they were at the right depth to break
Rip it up and start again...
Years ago at a National Garden Scheme event I got chatting to another garden owner about re-vamping tired borders. I explained that I was trying to carve out some pockets of space in an overcrowded bed, to add in some earlier colour. She shook her head slowly. ‘You won’t
Sweet, gentle October.
...and so the show goes on...
Trouble in the bluebell woods...
Our problem in the bluebell woods arrived much as Ernest Hemingway once described bankruptcy. Slowly at first and then all at once. Four years ago at the height of the pandemic, a huge beech tree in full summer leaf came down in the middle of the night, in a June
Behind closed doors...
P.S. - the best pictures are at the end, with an autumnal offer too....
Plant-a-glow-glow*
October’s shortening days can fill me with autumnal gloom or delight with a blaze of brilliant colour - sometimes both in one day. A forty-eight hour spell of misery-inducing rain was followed by three perfect days earlier this week. I spent every possible moment outside, alternating between slow, steady
Subtle, shimmering September
Plus - visiting the homes of dead artists, and a foodie heaven in a shipping container.
If a tree falls in a forest...
...yes, it makes a sound, and everything changes.
Seeds, success and plundering pigeons...
We re-open this week! For Opening times and visitor offers scroll to the end.
Four down, two to go...
Hang in there, Persephone.