A couple of years ago I met a fascinating woman in her sixties who had made a vocation as an estate gardener . mold for an assortment of moneyed clients , she spent year weeding , divide and deadheading her way through all variety of beds and border . The work also render her with opportunities to pursue her pastime in garden design . When I meet her , she was about to retire . gratuitous to say , she did not elect to determine down in a planned community with a full - fourth dimension landscape gardening crew . She plant a sorcerous small town , buy a tramp old sign and began renovating its long overgrown garden . I have no dubiousness that when the time finally come , my friend will be buried with a trowel in her hand . That believably will not happen for days , however , because like all gardener , she has so much to do first .
When I demand this consummate gardener how she learn her trade she replied with three words-“old gardening books . ” I felt an straightaway mother wit of kinship , as I have my own burgeon collection of aged volume . Often full of keen writing , they inform me and make me sense connected with the great continuum of gardeners while reminding me that there is very little new under the sun .
For Christmas , my husband gave me Flowers In Britain by the rather fancifully make L.J.F. Brimble ( MacMillan & Company Limited , London , 1946 ) . As is often the case with used books , the first Sir Frederick Handley Page provided a cue about the identity of the book ’s initial possessor . Though there is no name on the flyleaf , the inscription reads : “ From the Madison Garden Club , April 1946 . For a little talk on garden design - with shrub , bulbs , etc . ”
Clearly the book ’s possessor was no rank amateur . She was probably a local garden decorator , or at least a soundly seasoned club phallus with enough expertise to teach others something about figure .
In peak In Britain , Brimble categorize common British plants by family , dividing the members of those class into three groups : ornamental , hazardous plants , and those with economical importance as seed of food , medication or fiber . Members of each plant family are portray on beautiful color plate and in detailed line of reasoning drawings . Brimble bring a spate of erudition into the religious service of botany and gardening , but he also contributed an bionomic perspective that was ahead of its time . Modern environmentalists can agree wholeheartedly with line he borrowed from poet John Drinkwater ’s “ Olton Pools : To The Defilers ” :
“ When you defile the pleasant streams ,
And the wild bird ’s nesting place
You massacre a million dream
And cast your spit in God ’s face . ”
There is less poetry , but much pragmatic entropy in Norman Taylor ’s The Permanent Garden ( D. Van Nostrand Company , Inc. , Toronto , New York and London , 1953 ) . “ Without Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and shrub , ” say the author , “ it is impossible to create gardens . ” This vocalize obvious , but generations of gardeners have ignored that wisdom and their garden bear for it . Taylor ’s leger has lengthy discussion of how to site trees , which corner to pick for specific purposes , and how to avert vulgar mistakes . The author manoeuvre out things that many novice homeowners do n’t think about , such as the fact that a flowering , fruit treeplaced too closely to the household will gum up the gutters with detritus . He also warns against perils that are with us still , say ,
“ Do n’t make the common error of letting some landscape contractor put in a fate of so - called ‘ foundation planting . ’ instance are too plebeian of windows and porches being smothered by shrubs and trees that have no place in such planting . ”
reckon around my neighborhood , I can see many reasons for reprint Taylor ’s fifty - year - old bulk .
As much as I love English garden writer , one of the skilful books in my aggregation of oldies is Old Time Gardens ( MacMillan & Company , New York and London , 1902 ) by prolific American author Alice Morse Earle ( 1851 - 1911 ) . Mrs. Earle , a native of Worcester , Massachusett , was an authorization on Colonial America , producing books on custom , costume , and law-breaking and punishment as well as garden . Her inquiry was so thorough that many of those script are still in mark . Old Time Gardens is not among them , and it is too bad , as her verbal description of pregnant gardens all over America are well worth the Leontyne Price of the volume .
Like all good garden writer , Mrs. Earle is free to air her prejudice . She loves box seat hedges , gloomy gardens and Viola tricolour , which she calls by one of itscommon names , “ Ladies ’ Delight . ” She dislike spot plants such as Pulmonaria , and states that “ few persons would care for bed of all blank flowers . ” The latter quote makes me wonder what she would have cerebrate of the white - flowered garden masterpiece that another great writer , Vita Sackville - West , created at Sissinghurst Castle afterwards in the one C .
Old Time Gardens makes wonderful bedtime reading , peculiarly in wintertime , because each chapter can stand alone . story and poetry are mixed into every chapter long with the plant traditional knowledge and tradition . The account book is specially poignant because many of thehistoric gardensthat Mrs. Earle described have long since disappeared .
So If your travel take you to used bookshop or passee dealers during this garden “ off season ” , find your way to the garden books . You may break some clear up old ideas set forth by generator who will become new friends .
Yellow RoseSWORD LILIESCHANGE IN THE GARDENUNFORGETTABLEFRESH VEGGIES
