Lift spirits in winter
	9:16am Thu 27 Dec 07
	VAL BOURNE suggests a box of colour to brighten dark evenings In recent weeks I have been compiling a diary and garden planner for a well-known homes and gardens magazine. One of my many and varied tasks was to ask well-respected and famous gardeners for monthly tips. One winter suggestion from Wolfgang Bopp, the curator of the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, (01794 368787) near Winchester, shone out for me.

	Time to plan seeds
	10:13am Thu 20 Dec 07
	As digging and pruning are out, VAL BOURNE turns to the catalogues I always feel in limbo land at this time of the year. You can't dig when it's sopping wet and you shouldn't prune when it's frosty. So the the only thing to do is settle down with an armful of seed catalogues and plan for next year.

	No place for Depp
	10:57am Thu 13 Dec 07
	VAL BOURNE dreams not of film stars but of where to plant next spring

	Forcing the issue
	10:52am Thu 6 Dec 07
	VAL BOURNE follows the Dutch example by forcing bulbs in midwinter We are only about two weeks away from the shortest day and you can already see bulbs pushing up through the ground. In fact, I have one solitary autumn-flowering snowdrop, Galanthus reginae-olgae, in full flower and several Narcissus Cedric Morris' about to flower. In six weeks I hope to have hundreds of bulbs out.

	The Joy of vegetables
	11:22am Thu 29 Nov 07
	VAL BOURNE is pleasantly surprised by her first winter salad collection The great thing about gardening is that it's a learning curve. Every year presents new and exciting opportunities and this year mine is winter salad, something I've never grown before. I was prompted into growing my own after reading that the bleach solution used to clean packeted salad leaves is somewhat stronger than chlorinated swimming pool water. Bleach is full of ageing free radicals and I'm ravaged enough as it is!

	Paths to the future
	10:32am Thu 22 Nov 07
	VAL BOURNE plots a new landscape and discovers the roots of the scarecrow There are lots of gardeners who hang up their tools in October and only emerge again in spring. But there are always things that can only be accomplished in winter. It's the ideal time to think about your hard landscape, to lay paths and patios on frost-free days. Or, if you're inept on the do-it-yourself front like me, to get someone in. I've just had some paths laid in my vegetable patch and I'm waiting for some untreated wood so that I (or rather we') can make four raised beds.

	Late flowers bring delight
	10:13am Thu 15 Nov 07
	VAL BOURNE recommends long-flowering plants for autumn There is nothing special about the rose border in the picture. At least there wouldn't be if the shot hadn't been taken in mid-November. Usually by then penstemons, roses, hardy geraniums and anthemis have been cut back by frosts. But this year's mild weather has kept things going.

	Time to pick your Carol
	11:01am Thu 8 Nov 07
	VAL BOURNE suggests some colourful indoor bulbs for winter The best beloved has (or had) a fetish for big bulbs - the bigger and uglier the better. His first acquisition was Urginia maritima, the Sea Squill. But this lost its attraction quickly. For on our next holiday we trudged through thousands of these insipid, white-spired flowers on the shores of a Greek island. They are as common on sun-baked Mediterranean slopes as dandelions are on my lawn.

	Grim for pumpkins
	10:35am Thu 1 Nov 07
	VAL BOURNE says this year's cool, wet summer has led to a crop failure I expect you have been trick or treated' in the last few days. I always escape this dubious pleasure because I have always lived in houses with dark, unwelcoming drives. But I did have a brush will Hallowe'en. I was tickled by a besom broom while shopping (unintentionally, I add), when a giggling teenage girl, carrying a very large, black pointed hat, swept by in high spirits - albeit a little carelessly.

	Divide and conquer
	12:05pm Thu 25 Oct 07
	VAL BOURNE revives the traditional art of dividing perennial clump-formers I have been busy moving plants from a holding bed in order to make way for new paths in one of the vegetable patches. They had made large clumps, particularly the summer-flowering geraniums and astrantias. Rather shockingly the central heart of each plant was a dry, peaty ball, probably due to last summer's drought. This dead centre must effect the vigour of the plant so I've been pulling these vast clumps apart and discarding the dry centres and keeping the new vigorous outer pieces. I must have potted up 30 small pieces from each clump into soil-based John Innes. Next year I should have lots of young plants and these will eventually be far more vigorous than the congested clumps that were already past their best.

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