Looking back – What happens when you finally get what you want

January

We started the year with a new roof. Simon the thatcher, my very idea of a romantic hero, finished it under floodlights as the year closed. (Turns out he was desperate to get it done so he could go skiing.) The bedroom felt toasty, the windows stopped leaking, and I was left a few metric tonnes of wet straw to move.

I thought I still had it, but looking back at the pictures, the vast majority of it has gone, pulled down into the earth by worms and wildlife. Some of it was layered over sections of the kitchen garden, much of it around the base of the fruit trees as the first step towards a food forest. There is yet more in the compost windrows, layered with grass clippings and scatterings of woodchip, encouraged by a duvet of cardboard to reach a critical temperature.

My husband bet me a bottle of Dom Perignon that it wouldn’t rot down fast enough for me to plant into it that season (i.e. the summer of 2023). I lost the bet. In a shameless attempt to win on a technicality, I put some Jerusalem artichokes in between the bundles of straw, but the slugs meant that proved entirely fruitless, even as a cheat. They simply dissolved, never to be seen again.

I think this year has been a bumper year for slugs and I have complained about it all year but I do wonder if all the composting, mulching and general working on the soil has meant that I have been running the world’s most beautiful slug farm. Yes, I do have a solution to my slug problem (also known as a duck deficit in permaculture circles), but more on that in next week’s essay.

But credit where credit is due, they did a fabulous job. Looking out of the window and looking at these pictures (see the second one below) brings home how far it has come. Our old roof that has sheltered the cottage for decades, becoming soil to grow our food.

There are two morals to this story. One, that patience is a virtue.

Moral of the story two, take pictures of practical things in the garden, as well as pretty things. The human mind is so hopeless at holding onto how things were.

No, not every month is going to have one of these homilies.

The other highlight of January. For once, I was at the front end of a trend. Narcissi bulbocodium were so hot in January that there were no bulbs to be had anywhere. My indoor bulbs missed Christmas by a whisker, but brightened up my January no end.

(If you have these out now, as I do, please do remember to not over-water.)

February

According to my diary, I started February by trying to persuade myself that I had a career in YouTube. This was a fleeting dalliance, a flame I may attempt to rekindle for yet another round in 2024, but I can tell you that this effort flickered and died.

However, there is some photographic evidence that I tried.

Two trips this month. The first to the Cotswolds, for lunch and general socialising. The second, more life changing.

I can’t think of another flower that inspires such obsession that their love has a name. Galanthophilia. I had never previously appreciated the exquisite beauty of the Galanthus, the snowdrop. So small. So neat. So white. They don’t come in blush tones, and could one even cut it? Not relevant to me.

2023 was the year that this changed.

A long overdue trip to East Lambrook Manor, famed for its snowdrops. And when you see them all together, and all at once, you absolutely can appreciate the differences. Yes, I bought many from their nursery, and came home and ordered many more.

There is some sadness to this now. My first trip might be my last. The house and garden is up for sale and it really isn’t clear whether the new owners are going to take up the mantle of sharing this incredible collection with the wider world. I have pencilled it my diary, more in hope that expectation, and I will keep you informed as and when I hear more.

There is of course the solution that I set up my own snowdrop collection at Malus Farm, build a teashop, and achieve fame as a national collection.

Oh dear. Spoken like a true galanthophile. Beware, it seems to be catching.

March

February was full of flowers. The flowering quinces, the snowdrops, even the early narcissi. But March appears to have been covered in a blanket of snow.

I don’t like to boast or to make you feel bad, but Malus Farm is set in a sheltered corner of a mild area in a famously temperate climate. Dahlias overwinter outdoors, and perennial wallflowers flower eleven months of the year. We have the odd frost, enough for it to be a novelty, and snow is special.

This was the best sort of snowfall. Big, white, proper snow, painting the landscape with a fat brush, erasing any and all of the garden planting, leaving only the bones.

And like all the best snow, it passed quickly and soon. It being March, there was little of that hanging around, frozen slushy phase; we simply went from a polar chilliness, to full spring, in a matter of a day and a night.

This was important because I caught a train to Cheltenham in the middle of march. I am not neurotic about much, but I am positively phobic of being too cold on a train. I combined a work trip with the highlight of the spring calendar, not Cheltenham Festival (horse-racing) but the Cheltenham Craft Fair.

Rowena (Red Ruby Rose) grew up in the Mill, just over the back field from Malus Farm. The fact that she now lives in Gairloch, Scotland, some 650 miles away, is neither here nor there. She’s a neighbour, just somewhat removed. I introduced her to natural dyeing and, being a crafter of textiles, she took this and ran with it. She was committed enough to drive her and her wares all the way from the Highlands to Cotswolds to exhibit her beautiful handmade bags.

Her stall was beautiful, and indeed won a prize for the most beautiful stand in the fair, but I fell head over heels with someone else’s ceramics. I carried four large, hand-thrown dinner plates very carefully home.

I desperately wanted to come home wearing a Sahar Millenary tilted trilby, but I managed to resist. I am still thinking about it though, some nine months later.

Whilst the downside to travelling by train is that one is powerless to control the thermostat, the upside is that there is often a walk between the station and the final destination. I so rarely potter around an urban area these days, and often it is a luxury that applies only in London. However, in between the Town Hall, host of the Craft Fair, and the station, I passed the most elegant of bookshops (I popped in to check they had a copy of my book and to move it to a prominent position), a quiet back street with interior shops and a closing down bed shop (I nearly bought a brass bedstead on a whim), and some utterly gorgeous Cheltenham Regency architecture.

Other highlights of March:

• My friend Naomi welcomed the arrival of a puppy, Ralph

• I filmed my first feature for Ffern

• The magnolias

April

If you’d asked me today how often I get to go to the Cotswolds, I would bemoan almost never. This spring, two trips in as many months. Hidcote is one of my most consistent sources of inspiration. I spent my thirtieth birthday there, and I am now old enough to be lying about my age, so that tells you how long I have been loving it.

2023 was not only the year I started fudging my date of birth, but also one where I started feeling increasingly out of touch with how the world seems to be going. Chat GPT both petrifies and saddens me. I am aware of more and more phone addiction as a psychologist, and I have had an ever-increasing suspicion for a while now that Instagram really isn’t very good for me.

The one exception I make to this rather curmudgeonly approach? Drone footage. Gardens from above absolutely fascinate me, and have revolutionised how I sketch out my own plans for Malus Farm. Suddenly sight lines, vistas, aspects and rooms make perfect sense.

Of course, if you are determined to resist the march of progress, there was that BBC series that used a hot air balloon…

Back home, I learned the lesson about tulips again. Stained glass window colours only. No exceptions. This year too much blasted pink. However, being the exception the proves the rule, the Belle Epoques were out of this world this year.

Less than a month after the snow, we had the hammock up. There now seems to be a pattern of hot Aprils (remember that very first lockdown?). I am not sure if this is what was responsible for the bumper quince harvest this year, a hot April can be incredible for blossom, as long as there is no frost later in the year to catch the setting fruit, and as long as the bees are out in time to pollinate the trees thoroughly and well. Maybe I am trying to read too much into this and it was just one of those things. If so, my quince tree is not an annual cropper, or even a biennial, but a once-every-five-year fruiter.

And at the end of April, Beltane. A weekend of creativity, flowers, food, and truly wonderful people. Now taking bookings for next year, if you happened to be interested.

May

The highlight of May was, of course, Chelsea. However, writing this review has made me realise that I am making more of the away than the home. May involved a trip to Damson Farm to learn about biodynamics as well as other things.

The peaks of the year, the memorable bits, tend to be the big events, and that is not how I would entirely wish this to be. (Also, I wrote a big blog post about Chelsea at the time, and I cannot imagine there is anything new to tell you about it, except that I am desperate to get my hands on a Press Day ticket for 2024.)

I shall therefore declare the highlight of May to be the Coral Charm peonies, with some aquilegia coming in a close second. The irises were ok this May, but nothing spectacular.

Some behind the scenes photos that were never going to make it into a usual blogpost, but give some indication of the usual state of my camera roll.

Some notes that I have made to myself for this coming May, apart from a reminder that Chelsea is absolutely worth the train fare, is to do more dyeing this month. May is a fantastic time for dyeing green. Rather surprisingly, given the amount of chlorophyll in plants, extracting the colour green as a dye is tricky and one is usually forced to dye something yellow (weld) and then overdye with blue (woad). Clearly, I am too amateur still at this whole game, so I have managed to get some good results with dahlias with added iron, which resulted in something best described as ‘mossy’. However, two plants are at peak ‘green’ in May; nettles and yarrow. I might even try bracken next year.

June

June was memorable for two reasons. Firstly, for a little bit of exhaustion after a very busy April and May, leading to a deep desire to stay very still. Secondly, the stress was mounting about whether my long held, heart’s desire of buying the cottage next door was finally going to come to fruition.

When I say, long held, I mean over a decade. I had been patient. I had been understanding. I had been supportive and empowering. I had pretended not to care. I had revealed a little bit that I cared a lot. June was the month that I started sending snippy letters to solicitors (his) and making myself such a monumental pain that they wanted to act just to get me to stop ringing (mine).

This was marginally less stressful than doing nothing, but going all in on something when you don’t know whether you are going to win everything or lose everything is one of the most frightening things you can do. I generally favour patience and perseverance over the grand gesture so this was particularly out of my comfort zone but, dear reader, there comes a point where one must declare that one has had enough.

The result of my efforts did not become obvious until July, so I will leave it there, but I can only say that I am surprised that my hair didn’t start coming out in handfuls in June.

As ever though, the garden had my back. The foxgloves were incredible (Camelot Cream, wish I’d grown more apricot though) and my roses, although probably now in their dotage, were as generous and as beautiful as ever. Absolutely stand out star of my summer (they started in June but went on forever) were the Venus Navelwort. So called because the seeds look like little tummy buttons, I just adore these perfect flowers. They are like white forget-me-nots but so much more robust than the usual Myosotis.

My plants originally came from Derry Watkins at the famous Special Plants and I managed to save absolutely loads of seed, so expect to see it in the shop as soon as I have written and printed some envelopes for it. Although it self-sows, I might have accidentally missed a year by not sowing any last autumn, but expect me to be raving about it again in 2025.

Something of failed endeavour but my photographic records suggest I started trying to take macro photographs again this month. I was given a macro lens for Christmas many many years ago, but never managed to do anything with it. (Macro lenses take pictures of very small things, very close up. ) This June, I really wanted to capture the detail on the petals of my lovely sweet peas. The colours went funny and focusing was really almost impossible, so this is something I want to devote some time to in 2024.

You can judge for yourself below.

However ropey these images were, I did not let it stop me publishing my first draft of my Sweet Pea Sourcebook. Sweet peas, and this book, are going to be a big part of my life in 2024, and I can’t wait to add to my image bank and maybe maybe, even get some editions of this printed. It has been a while since Grow & Gather. I think I’m ready for another book.

July

The month started with the usual Cornish holiday, although the first time in a new place. Rather conveniently down the road from Becca of The Garden Gate Flower Company, we got to sample the delights of Fowey. And very delightful they were and, rather fantastically, the week that we were there was the only dry week in July.

Even more wonderfully, whilst we were camping on the banks of the river and sampling pasties and ice creams, the purchase of 3 Church Cottages was completed. Our neighbour on the other side (1 Church Cottages) sent us photographic updates of the seller packing up and moving out. He used my front lawn to store his furniture and boxes before loading them onto the van, but by this point, I could not have cared less.

We returned home, unpacked the tent, did six loads of laundry, and then I was given the key.

I cannot overstate how incredible this has been. I am used to pushing hard and reaching far. I am deeply motivated by growth and stretching. I would not consider myself ambitious as such (but that might simply be the patriarchy that makes me ashamed of my ambition as something unseemly and too masculine) but I do not stand still. I experiment and play and grow and I learn. However, I am also used to striving and striving for something and then feeling flat on reaching it. I had expected this. I was prepared for this.

It didn’t happen. It has been five months and twelve days and my heart still hurts with happiness and gratitude. Every single day, I go into the cottage next door and I tell her that I love her. That I am so happy that we are together. That I will make her warm and dry and safe and cared for.

I am a Cancerian. I care for bricks and (lime) mortar like other people care for flesh and blood.

Although we still haven’t knocked any walls down, the cottages are united in spirit, if not yet in construction. This is the month that Malus Farm was truly born.

Almost as soon as we were home from holiday and had drunk some champagne to celebrate the cottage, my husband went to cycle across Nepal for the rest of July.

Me and my new bits of garden and my new cottage rooms spent the month together. I thought about writing a blog post called ‘there are three of us in this marriage’, but it felt uncomfortably close to the bone.

As my husband was away, I celebrate by drinking a whole bottle of champagne, buying some Ercol hoopback chairs that turned out to be fake, and going on a splurge at Kelways. I also booked myself onto a lime plastering course. Everything white in that picture above needs stripping off and replastering in breathable materials.

August

Underneath all the crescendo of joy about the cottage, a much quieter dream was also being realised. Maybe less of a dream than a dawning realisation.

I think my purpose in life is to grow sweet peas. August marked the start of the harvest, and what a harvest it was. Easy. Abundant. Beautiful. Podding sweet pea pods is one of the most gloriously satisfying things in the world.

This year, I am going BIG on biodynamically grown sweet peas, and biodynamically produced sweet pea seed.

Also: the quince harvest. It was so abundant, I am writing this on Boxing Day and my mother is still getting touch with me and asking if I want more membrillo.

September

Just when the tomatoes are being harvested and being processed, we rip out the kitchen. In theory, this need only have taken two weeks, but as our builder only worked three day weeks and was meticulous, we ended up being without catering facilities for the best part of two months. The. very last, in a complete kitchen but frustratingly without taps.

I escaped for brief respites. To South Wood Farm, my ultimate garden, on a rainy NGS day. I managed a chat with the owner, Clive Potter, where we shared admiration for the genius that is Kristy Ramage, the designer of the future Malus Farm. If my garden ends up even half as perfect as SWF, I will die a happy woman.

At the end of September, I did something absolutely mad. I fitted four significant events into forty eight breathless hours. (I don’t often have dog care options, so my trips out do tend to be incredibly intense and condensed, and then I don’t leave the village for months again.)

A dive through Wiltshire to collect vintage glass cloches for the kitchen garden. An afternoon tour of Great Dixter. A night at Sissinghurst. Lunch the next day at Petersham Nurseries. An evening at the Strawberry Hill Flower Festival press night - a guest of Joanna Game.

It was madness and a whirlwind and it took the best part of a week to recover, but it was magical and inspirational.

The whole trip was started by the invitation to Great Dixter which I secured by being a member of the Garden Media Guild. I haven’t done much with this if I am honest, but this trip later turned out to be worth its weight in gold. I met the gardening editor of Country Living and, through relentless charm and refusing to take conversational cues that she might wish to spend time with anyone else, I have managed to get not one but two features in CL in 2024. I hope this is the start of big things.

I mostly spent the rest of September lying down, but I was especially pleased with some of my perennial planting coming to fruition. As I get older, I appreciate the smaller vignettes more, the subtleties and the nuance. (Not that I am averse to a massive installation of a sawn off branch covered in blossom, but mostly on high days and holidays now.) The echinaceas were particularly wonderful this month.

Also, Naomi and Ralph returned after their sabbatical to help at Malus Farm on Thursdays.

October

Indoors, the kitchen is finally finished.

Hugo’s life is changed because he has a cubby hole in which to spend his days. He is absolutely delighted.

 I buy a massive brass bed to celebrate.

Alongside the gardening things I write to you about on a daily basis, there is all the other life stuff. This month has been particularly heavy on it, mostly because my mother in law is finally moving out of the house that she has lived in for over forty years and she, very sadly, has a hoarding problem. If you have ever had anything to do with this, you will understand how stressful it is, and the whole process of moving has caused such pain and sadness to all concerned.

I manage combine a trip up to provide some intensive psychological intervention with a conference at Tuppenny Barn on gardening and mental health. See above re dog care. I am delighted to finally make it there as Maggie has been a supporter of me for such a long time, and now it is my turn. Tuppenny Barn became the Gather charity of choice in 2023 and will continue to be so in 2024. That means that 10% of any money you spend on either Gather or the shop will go straight to supporting the work that Tuppenny Barn do.

Back home. Dahlias. The village apple pressing. We lift the floor in the parlour and find, not the flags we were hoping for, but poured concrete. I put a rug down anyway, and style a massive table. Our local lime plasterer comes round to give a quote. Lime plastering is one of the most expensive activities known to humanity but Zachary Trump (yes, that’s his real name) gets a lot of people to pay his rates by being utterly beautiful and outrageously flirtatious. His visit leaves me unable to concentrate for the rest of the day.

I really must get back onto starting that Jilly Cooper Fan Club. He would be the perfect character…

November

This month is traditionally spent packing sweet pea parcels for the Christmas shop.

I did this a lot, but I also play hooky and go to Stourhead. I time it perfectly, and I have put exactly the same date in for next year. To be combined with cocktails and dinner at the Bradley Hare. (7 November, in case you want to meet me there.)

I can’t do a review of December because we are still in it and, thrillingly, it generally involves rounds of post offices, parcels, and writing cards. I am so so grateful for all of your seed orders, your emails, your support and your enthusiasm this year.

Despite the trips out and the to’ing and fro’ing to exciting places, this year has felt like I have just been getting by. And despite the great joy and the peaks of 2023, I have often felt like the world is really a bit much.

The next essay will be on hopes for future, plans for 2024, dreams and desires. Of course, uppermost in this list will be world peace, but there may also be ducks, and energy, and slightly fewer brambles.

How about you? Comments open for highlights and lowlights of the year.