Garden views

This month, Amanda Bassett, National Trust lead gardener at Stoneywell in Leicestershire, talks signs of spring and listening to your soil

- HOLLY RANSOME

"We're a short drive away from Leicester in a corner of the Charnwood Forest with its craggy outcrops, rolling hills and ancient woodland. The cottage was designed by Ernest Gimson for his brother Sydney in the 1800s, but it was Anne Gimson, the wife of Sydney's grandson Donald, who changed the garden most significantly when she lived here in the 1950s. A passionate, albeit amateur gardener, she kept diaries of her work outdoors, and helpfully for us we use them as a guide.