Christmas has arrived here at Gasper Cottage! Bella recently spent a very happy morning creating festive garlands and table decorations for the house, using foliage and flowers taken from the garden, hedgerows and local woods. We hope you enjoy them, and have a very merry Christmas wherever you are. The magic you can achieve with a liberal spraying of gold paint...! This is cedar taken from the nearby forest and gives off the most wonderful aroma. The trusty little red apple

The weather forecast is rarely far from a gardener's mind, especially at this time of year. Opening the BBC weather app on his phone (as he does at least once a day, often more!), Head Gardener Jack now checks not just for any rain or wind that may shape his work schedule, but keeps a close eye on night time temperatures too. In this particular corner of the UK, we can expect the first frost anytime from late October onwards. In a garden with its share of tender and half-hard

Step into the garden at Gasper Cottage in October and you will be greeted by dahlias, cosmos, sunflowers, and asters, still fresh, flawless, and bursting with life and colour. These late-season troopers continue to flower their socks off well into autumn, wilfully refusing to take their cue from the many other plants now firmly in 'wind down' mode. With such season-defying vigour on offer, the value of succession planting has never been more apparent. By this, we mean plantin

For much of the growing season, the meadow here at Gasper Cottage demands very little input. Its winding grass paths are the only part in need of attention, and even then nothing more than a weekly whizz round with the mower and occasional light sculpting of the edges. Not a foot is set on the vegetation itself: a rich, heady tapestry of long grass, wildflowers, and naturalistic perennials. Once a year, however, this fuss-free feature veers to the other extreme of dominating