Bothy Gardens

First bbq of the season! We need more evenings like yesterday. 😘

To mark International Women’s Day, we're celebrating some of the women who have shaped the course of horticulture from past to present.

The historical barriers women faced in pursuing careers in horticulture make their achievements all the more important and there have been many who've played a vital role from garden design and art to journalism and science.

Learn more about some of the incredible women essential to the development of horticulture, and name a woman in horticulture who’s inspiring you today!🌸

Read more: https://www.rhs.org.uk/education-learning/libraries-at-rhs/articles/rhs-celebrates-women-in-horticulture

Lovely morning! Like we are up in the clouds ☁️

Looking forward to the sun coming back and get our 2026 season started.

Meanwhile, we escape the rain and make AI caricatures 😘

💕

This looks interesting! We are about a mile from the Ridgeway and 3 miles from a white horse.

The Historic Ridgeway Lecture series is back!

Quiet earthworks and silent fields hold secrets that the Historic Ridgeway project reveals through stories and lectures.

We kick off our popular Historic Ridgeway online winter lecture series with White Horse Hill National Trust Ranger Andy Foley. He will give us an introduction to the origins of the National Trust, before focusing on the enigmatic White Horse Hill, the oldest chalk-cut hill figure in Britain, dating back possibly 3,000 years.

📍Online Thursday February 5th 19.00 - 20.00 2026 GMT
Places are free, but you do need to register here: https://tinyurl.com/274dvm33

fans North Wessex Downs National Landscape The Friends of The Ridgeway National Trust Archaeology Historic England West Berkshire Heritage

The image shows scouring on the White Horse Hill from the air. Photo credit: Andy Foley

Happy mid-January, and yes, the first two weeks seem to have slipped by rather quickly.

Between winter days and quiet moments, we realised we never shared the full month of prompts. So here they are, offered gently, without rushing or expectation.

The Bothy Gardens 365 Journey is not about keeping up.
It’s about slowing down, noticing nature, and returning when you can.

You don’t need to start on the “right” day.
You don’t need to catch up.
You can begin today, revisit earlier prompts, or simply choose one that speaks to you.

This is not about artistic skill.
It’s about attention.
Any daily entry is wonderful: a sketch, a note, a few words, a line.

If you’d like to share your pages or moments of noticing, we’d love to see them.
Tag or use only if and when it feels right.

Let’s keep noticing together.

Today we begin.

No pressure.
No perfection.
Just a few quiet minutes of noticing.

For Day 1, notice a winter shape
a branch, a stem, a shadow, an outline against the sky.

If you’d like to continue, here’s Week 1:

• Day 1: Notice a winter shape
• Day 2: A winter texture (bark, frost, stone, soil)
• Day 3: Something still
• Day 4: A small detail you normally miss
• Day 5: Light and shadow
• Day 6: A winter structure
• Day 7: Return to something from earlier

Any mark is enough.
Any moment counts.

Last day of 2025 and we woke up to a beautiful frost covered sunny garden!

Wishing everyone a lovely and safe New Years Eve this evening. 😘

Flashback Friday 💕 The Bothy one year ago today!

5 days until Winter Solstice and the sun slowly coming back, but we are enjoying these late morning colours today!