AS a gardener, I cannot help but feel excited at the prospect of spring; a book I was given as a teenager proclaims in its rather simplistic and optimistic title: Every Spring is a New Beginning.
It’s as if every March I am offered a chance to wipe the slate clean, to do better, to grow things more skilfully and to try plants that have hitherto escaped my clutches. This year offers a particularly exciting prospect.
For the past 37 years, I have gardened on Hampshire chalk— first in my previous garden, which was the setting for seven years of Gardeners’ World television programmes set at the fictional name of ‘Barleywood’, and for the past 15 years at our current garden just a couple of miles down the road from there.
The setting is wonderful— four acres at the foot of the rolling Hampshire Downs surrounding a mellow brick Georgian farmhouse that was known to Jane Austen, who lived just a couple of miles away. The house was owned, but not lived in, by Sir Thomas Miller, of whom Jane wrote to her sister Cassandra: ‘Sir Thomas Miller is dead. I seem to be bringing you news of a dead baronet with every letter.’ A poignant association, perhaps, but an association nevertheless.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 14, 2018-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 14, 2018-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds