Life in a Cottage Garden

I stumbled across this set of videos and enjoyed watching them so much that I wanted to share them with you. The video series follow a year of seasonal changes in Carol Kein's garden in North Devon, England.

I admire Carol's passion for gardening and her boundless energy. Well into the darkness of evening, she's out in her potting shed filling seed trays and making new plants. As I watched her working away, scattering seed over the surface of the rich, black earth and covering it with "grit" I found myself wondering if her husband must not be a little lonely inside the warm house watching the "telly" all by himself.

Does he peer out the kitchen window periodically and wonder if its time to put the kettle on? Somehow I think that after over thirty years of marriage he has come to understand and appreciate her obsession with plants.

Photo by Jonathan Buckley Source

Carol is a tiny woman, with a bird's nest of short blonde hair, but there is nothing delicate about her. As you will see, she is always hefting and hauling heavy plant pots and trudging through her garden wheelbarrow in hand.

"Come'n have a look at this," she says beaconing to the camera in the fourth video of the series. It turns out there are hornets "tucking into" the bark of some willow saplings. Her delight in this discovery makes me think of my Mom. She too found pleasure in such simple things.

My most favourite scene by far is one of triumph. It is mid-August and Carol's "hot" flower border has come into its height of color.

She adds a pot of tall vermilion 'Bishop of Llandaff' dahlias into the border and then stands back to describe for viewers the glorious mingling of reds, oranges and yellows. Her words end with a crescendo of excitement and her body rocks in a little gig. "I think that its all sort of..." her hands ball into fists as she struggles to find the perfect word to describe just what she has managed to create. Finally the right adjective bubbles to the surface,"Magnificent!"Carol declares in jubilation.

Moments of triumph like this are every gardeners dream!

Go make yourself a cup of coffee and then settle into to watch the snowdrops and hellebores emerge in Carol's garden in the early winter.

Links to Life in a Cottage Garden can be found on my Pinterest page on the board "Gardening Videos".