The 5ft hare is almost ready to play her part in The 2017 Cotswold Hare Trail. One more coat of varnish is all she requires.  I hope that she takes to life in the public eye just as well as she has coped with being a part of our busy… Read More »Sneaky Peeks ~ 27th February 2017

There is a giant hare in my greenhouse!      I’ve been chosen as one of the artists selected to decorate a giant hare for the Cotswold Hare Trail 2017!  I am thrilled and honoured and…..I’ve got my work cut out.    Follow my progress @nicolahopegardener on Instagram. I will… Read More »Cotswold Hare Trail 2017

A series of really rather unfortunate and pretty horrible stuff happened to me over the summer.  I am sure I will be able to write about it all in greater detail sometime but now is not that time.    I can confidently write that if I were not a gardener,… Read More »Gardening as Therapy ~ 5th December 2016

I watched as three hard frosts turned my Dahlias from stately ladies to swampy rags and I lost my nerve.  I dug up the tubers and they are now upside down, drying out in a cool room.  I couldn’t face losing them. I couldn’t face a winter of fretting…..were the… Read More »Update in The Great Dahlia Experiment 2016-2017

In one garden I am playing it safe In another garden I am being very brave.  I am being especially brave in garden #2 because it is my garden. My own Dahlia tubers will stay in the ground all winter.  625kg of horticultural grit arrives on Tuesday. I will mulch… Read More »The Great Dahlia Experiment 12016-17

Nicola wanted to write but didn’t know quite where to start. She had read and listened to plenty of interviews with successful authors and knew that if you wanted to write you had to jolly well just get on with it. So, Nicola just got on with it.  She had… Read More »Nicola wanted to write……