The Bottengoms Garden of Ronald Blythe, with head-gardener Jonathan Zerr

This is Bottengoms, the medieval longhouse in the Stour Valley, on the Essex-Suffolk border, where first the painter-plantsman John Nash and his artist wife Christine, and then Ronald Blythe, lived from 1943 to 2023. The house stands in a two-acre garden and nature reserve, with the water supply coming from a spring-fed stream which originally ran across the kitchen floor. Ronnie willed Bottengoms to the Essex Wildlife Trust as a teaching resource and a retreat for writers, artists and naturalists. I am talking to Jonathan Zerr, head-gardener at Bottengoms, in the late winter/early spring of 2026. Ian Collins is author and curator, and has written the only biography of Ronnie Blythe, called “Blythe Spirit” (see and listen to podcast to come in mid-2026). Ronnie Blythe’s final book was “Next to Nature”. I am President of Essex Wildlife Trust. There will be further films tracing the seasons at Bottengoms in May, July and Oct of 2026. For more: see https://www.essexwt.org.uk/bottengoms