Val Bourne looks back on personal successes, and failures in the garden

The year is turning and I always spend time thinking about what’s gone and trying to imagine what’s on its way.

I have had an extremely good year professionally, having won the main award from the Garden Media Guild, Journalist of the Year, a few weeks ago.

My birthday was in The Times (how surreal is that?) and a year or so ago I was put into Who’s Who. It could be head-swelling, but the younger members of one’s family deflate you within seconds. On showing my family the thingummyjig I was given, my granddaughter Ellie, aged seven, told me her dad had got a glass thing just like that for football. India, aged eight, added that it wasn’t very large, was it? She expected more! The other two, James and Jess, didn’t even look up!

I’ve been writing for 20 years now and I started by bumping large brown envelopes through the post — and getting them back within days.

In my first six months I earned £50 and lived on cheap baked beans and soup. I’m never going to be rich, but I’m never bored. And I’ve been fortunate because I’ve worked for The Oxford Times. They’ve allowed me to develop my own style and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to them and you. A free rein is invaluable.

I’ve had hilarious moments and the funniest was at the now defunct RHS Scotland show, when I had to give my copy for the Scottish Daily Mail over the telephone to a copytaker who had a strong Glaswegian accent. Names had to given letter by letter and somehow Sir Simon Hornby, then President of the RHS, had the b in his surname omitted. The Scottish journalists howled their approval as I came into the Press Tent. I’ve had low moments too, when I’ve spent my last £5 on petrol in order to meet an editor who has taken the day off without bothering to let me know. I’ve made friends and I’ve met people who have warmed my heart. The late great Alan Bloom of Bressingham became very special and he took me out on a steam engine the very first time I met him. I have dreaded meeting others and the late Felix Dennis, who’s still associated with the Oz trial, was notoriously difficult with journalists.

However, he will always hold a place in my heart, because he loved his bit of Warwickshire and his garden. I’ve also met lots of gardeners who share my passion for plants.

The most important thing to me has always been my garden and a garden is a great leveller for there are always failures. This year the Best Beloved and I hardly raised a carrot between us! I blame him, of course, for he was seduced into planting them by glorious March days when the temperature reached an ambient 20C. The fact that nighttime temper-atures were falling like a stone didn’t register with him. This year I am taking charge of the seed packets, for carrots are umbellifers. They need warmish nights approaching 10C. The key to vegetable gardening is timing and you can’t go by the calendar.

Oxford Mail:
Barron: The derelict Spring Cottage... not a flower in sight

I lost a lot of plants in the very wet winter of 2013-14 and my greatest loss was a diminutive shell-pink oriental poppy called Papaver orientale ‘Karine’. This came from Beth Chatto and it seems to have disappeared from every nursery, probably due to rotting of in the wet. I had eight plants woven into my rose and peony beds and everyone succumbed. Normally oriental poppies are indestructible and they grow back from tiny pieces of root, but so far not a leaf has returned.

The peony buds are also nudging through the ground and that’s especially comforting. If I had to choose one glorious moment it’s when the peony buds begin to break, because I have masses of them at Spring Cottage. And I shall carry on writing — so a Happy New Year to you all.