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Byline: Val Bourne I know that autumn has finally arrived at Spring Cottage. My favourite spindle tree (Euonymus planipes) has coloured up, more pumpkin orange than its usual lipstick-pink, and [...]

Byline: Val Bournes Asunny autumn border makes this time of year much more enjoyable than a garden full of prematurely 'tidy' brown soil. Rather than an early bedtime, think of [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Autumn has already arrived at Spring Cottage. I've worn my first winter jumper, and Poppy the cat has taken up her place on a kitchen chair after [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Once a tree is mature, it's possible to allow a climber or twiner to ramble through the branches without doing too much damage. Some rambling roses are [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Nothing lifts the spring garden quite like a spring bulb and now's the time to get on with ordering - especially this year because the cold spring [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Hot, hot and even hotter has been the theme at Cold Aston this summer, with the emerging shoots of the Japanese anemone, Anemone hupehensis var. japonica 'Pamina', [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Pond edges usually stay damp in summer and plants appreciate the extra moisture during the growing season. However, winter wet is an entirely different matter, so most [...]

Byline: Val Bourne For moisture-retentive soil and sun Good verticals are hard to find, but the upright tapers of Veronicastrum virginicum 'Fascination' provide a sea of lavender spires tall enough [...]

Byline: Val Bourne There's an old English proverb that says if you want to be happy for a year plant a garden (and, it goes on, if you want to [...]

Byline: Val Bourne For the shady side of a fence Climbers and twiners are useful garden plants because most rise up vertically, taking up little ground space. Honeysuckles are one [...]

Byline: Val Bourne For a hot spot with dry soil The hardy, shrubby Salvia x jamensis 'Peter Vidgeon' is perfect for a sun-baked corner of the garden where lusher plants [...]

Byline: Val Bourne At last things are on the move at Spring Cottage and that includes the birds. We are doing our own mini Springwatch by watching a pair of [...]

Byline: Val Bourne For good soil, partial sun You couldn't pick a better phlox than 'Monica Lynden-Bell' - it's vigorous, easy to grow, long-lived and healthy. The pale pink flowers [...]

Byline: Val Bourne It's increasingly hard to buy good compost, one that does what it says on the bag. Last year was even worse than usual because frequent heavy rain [...]

Byline: Val Bourne For a south-facing, free-draining spot This demanding position will scorch lots of plants badly. However, if you pick a subject with leaves that are aromatic, silver, hairy, [...]

Byline: Val Bourne The other day I received a letter from a friend who lives in a much warmer place. It was addressed to Almost Spring Cottage, Cold Cold Aston, [...]

Byline: Val Bourne For a dank corner Every garden has a dank corner, or an area close to a stone wall or fence that gets very little light. Most plants [...]

Byline: Val Bournes Chelsea is about to celebrate its 100th birthday. I'm a comparative newcomer, having attended a mere 18. However, there are three exhibitors, Blackmore & Langdon, Kelways and [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Following a sunny weekend and a favourable Countryfile weather forecast that inspired lots of Sunday night business, Crocus, the gardening website, is bustling with nearly 1,000 orders. [...]

Byline: Val Bourne The clue is in the name when it comes to Cold Aston, my village. My daughters and I often have lengthy 'it's cold in Cold Aston' phone [...]

Byline: Val Bourne I have new neighbours called Martha and Dylan and I'm rather taken with them. Martha, mother of Dylan, is rounder and greyer than her son, a condition [...]

Byline: Val Bourne As an avid grower of vegetables I produce most of my own in my garden and allotment. Over the years I've settled on certain varieties because they [...]

Byline: Val Bourne The gardening year starts on the ground, usually under the benign shelter of bare branches about to burst into leaf. Not surprisingly, some of our earliest ground-huggers [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Peter Beales, who died last Saturday, was a passionate rosarian, particularly when it came to old-fashioned species that drip with flowers in June. They matched his generous [...]

Byline: Val Bourne There is no need to empty your piggy bank, or shred your nerves chasing all over the country after rare snowdrops that galanthophiles dream about. Some of [...]

Byline: Val Bourne A new year is here and thankfully I have managed to spend three consecutive dry days in the garden: something of a triumph after last year. I've [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Snow is good news for some plants and bad news for others. Snow protects perennial plants that have retreated underground from harsh temperatures. It suits bulbs too: [...]

Byline: Val Bourne One of the best things I did as a young gardener with a growing family was join the Hardy Plant Society, a charity set up after the [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Jobs for bad weather When the weather allows, check over any newly planted shrubs, trees and perennials. The exceptionally heavy rainfall this year might have exposed the [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Wrestle a rambler Time to don the goggles, gloves and long sleeves and wrestle with your rambling roses while the new stems are still pliable. Although habits [...]

Byline: Val Bourne I did hope for an Indian summer at Spring Cottage, but now November is upon us I have to admit that it is not going to happen [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Winter vegetables are much more rewarding than summer ones. They feed you for months on end, just when vegetables are at their priciest and you are at [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Containers make excellent focal points in any garden. I love my tactile summer collections of scented-leaved pelargoniums, and silver-leaved Plectranthus argentatus spiced up with purple heliotrope. But [...]

Byline: Val Bourne 1 Scilla mischtschenkoana AGM Not easy to spell and it doesn't look like a scilla either, so think early puschkinia here. And that's how it was discovered, [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Autumn tends to major in burnished golds, coppery browns and brash yellows, but these can look uninspiring when planted en masse. Adding the sooty, blue-black spires of [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Vegetables play a large part at Spring Cottage for two reasons. First, I love food, especially when it goes straight from plot to plate. Nothing sounds sweeter [...]

Byline: Val Bourne My youngest granddaughter Jess, four at the end of September, announced that she is 'octurnal, a word 'cascaded down' (to use an educational term) from her schoolgirl [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Hollyhocks seem to have enjoyed the summer rain this year. Rust (Puccinia malvacearum), their usual scourge, has been less prevalent, possibly because the airborne spores have been [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Nothing quite prepares you for Sezincote. After winding through the mighty oaks that line the long drive of this Gloucestershire garden on the edge of the Cotswolds, [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Make sure you visit the gathering of roses in the Rose Marquee at Hampton Court (close to the Thames Gate) where 12 floristry exhibits, paintings and sculptures [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Growing For Taste Marquee This is the perfect place to buy productive seeds and plants, especially if you are looking for something new and unusual. Blackmoor Nurseries [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Aneighbour stopped to talk to me over the low stone wall at Spring Cottage recently, to commiserate about the dreadful rain. I responded, as any gardener would, [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Chelsea is the only flower show in the world with the ability to propel plants from obscurity straight into the stratosphere within a week. Some inevitably plunge [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Once the tulips begin to fade there's a lull in the garden and, although there's plenty of fresh verdant foliage, flowers are often few and far between [...]

Byline: Val Bourne A sparagus is perfectly possible at Spring Cottage although it arrives late – our village is not called Cold Aston for nothing. We planted some soon after [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins and squashes are the most frost–tender plants in the vegetable garden: the slightest frost will kill them, so they can't go outside until the [...]

Byline: Val Bourne After three savage and prolonged Cotswold winters, we have been spared another. Spring has safely arrived in the gloriously named Cold Aston, although the daffodils scorched in [...]

Byline: Val Bourne The lanes around Boconnoc House, near Lostwithiel in Cornwall, were buzzing last weekend as 10,000 visitors descended on the 100th Cornwall Spring Flower Show. It's a perfect [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Now is an excellent time to plant a clematis and there should be three distinct types flowering in garden centres. The evergreen Clematis armandii (from central and [...]

Byline: Val Bourne Like most gardeners, I'm obsessed with the weather. I listen to the forecast morning, noon and night, despite the fact that we can see most of the [...]