Books
Tough Plants
Climate change is with us and this book covers 40 plants that survive extreme weather – be it dry summers or wet winters. They’re garden stalwarts.
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About
Val Bourne is an award-winning garden writer, organic gardener and lecturer and she gardens on the wind-swept Cotswolds at Spring Cottage – high above Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire. Her third of an acre garden is managed without using chemicals – something Val has always believed in. She is a hands on gardener and a committed plantaholic.
Welcome
I’ve been a gardener all my life, but I only began writing about gardening in 1995. Back then most garden writing seemed uninspiring, rather dull and often badly informed. So I put my toe in the water, having been inspired by Beth Chatto’s nursery catalogue which described plants with incredible flair and poetry. It wasn’t easy and I earnt £50 in my first six months. I moth balled my car, took to a bike, and lived on a diet of cheap baked beans. Gradually I crept into the world of garden writing and I’ve kept going.
All my writing centres around my garden, first at Homefield and now at Spring Cottage. I try to garden as often as possible, aided by the Best Beloved who I always say never does anything when I want – or how I want. He puts up with my many plant passions and hardly ever sees me during the snowdrop season when I’m out and about. He slaps a meal in front of me and then I do a ‘collapser’ on the settee, but he never complains. He knows that we have too many peonies and far too many hellebores but he declines to mention it. And although he always says don’t buy any more dahlias Val, he still shoe horns them on to the allotment for me without complaining too much! In recent years my grandchildren have taken to the garden too, so life at Spring Cottage is chaotic but hugely enjoyable.
Most importantly I’ve pioneered natural gardening because, having been born in 1950 (YIKES) I’ve personally witnessed the decline in wildlife. I want gardeners to realise that they can, and must, play an important part in sustaining the planet for future generations.
Lectures
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A Year at Spring Cottage
The high Cotswolds is not an easy place to garden, but there’s something to admire throughout the year. Follow a year in Val’s garden, which is an eco-friendly space packed with great plants.
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Spring Bulbs
What to plant where, with lots of practical information learned over a lifetime, and some new treasures too.
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Bombproof Roses for The Modern Gardener
As an organic gardener, unable to spray for the fungal disease blackspot, I have identified some super-healthy roses and use them in my garden at Spring Cottage. Many of the old roses have Gallica blood somewhere in their lineage, but I can also grow Albas, Hybrid Musks, Ramblers and some climbers. In my mixed peony, rose and phlox borders I have added some modern shrub and floribunda roses. The talk covers the roses, their companions, rose pruning and feeding.
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Fern Fancying – a primeval passion
Ferns are one of my plant passions, but I’ve only been collecting them for about ten years or so, because I had to cast the shade in my south-facing garden first. Collecting them was Victorian mania, so they have a fascinating history. There are lots of variations from crested, to lacy, to tongue-shaped. I’ll talk about how to place and grow polypodies, adiantums, dryopteris, athyriums and polystichums and select the best ones.
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Butterflies in Gardens
I’ve always been a keen butterfly watcher and making the garden at Spring Cottage has taught me which plants they visit, the difference a mini meadow can make and much more. This talk is full of butterfly slides taken in my garden and these illustrate their preferences sometimes based on colour, sometimes on flower shape and sometimes on the sugar content of the nectar – the ‘lucozade’ of the insect world.
