Natural History: “to be alive is to be watchful”

Posted on 22/07/2023 by The Garden History Blog

Whose 2000th birthday should we be celebrating this year?  

Here’s a clue. He was a workaholic military officer and civil servant for the Emperor Vespasian,  and the author of the first book that resembled an encyclopaedia. Usually known as Natural History it was described by its editor as “a learned and comprehensive work as full of variety as nature itself”.  It’s the largest and amongst the most influential texts to have survived from classical times and is made up of  37  separate books covering every aspect of life  from astronomy to zoology via art, botany, drugs, metallurgy and of course horticulture.

He is, of course….

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The royal gardens of Amboise – past and present

Posted on 15/07/2023 by The Garden History Blog

I helped lead a Gardens Trust tour last autumn round gardens of the Loire Valley.  Almost our last port of call was the great early Renaissance chateau of Amboise where a series of  new gardens have  been installed in recent years.  It’s not often these days that money can be found for new garden projects like this especially in such a sensitive  historic site. The chateau is former royal residence and overlooks a UNESCO World Heritage site,  but its grounds were rather neglected until the great storm of 1999 wreaked such havoc that was no choice but a total rethink.   It took a while to decide what to do but it was worth the wait and the new gardens have already been listed as being of national significance.

Despite the fact it rained much of the time we were there,  like me, the Gardens Trust members on the tour  all seem to have been impressed… read on to see if you agree with them…

 

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Walter rules the garden … or does he?

Posted on 08/07/2023 by The Garden History Blog

Last week I looked at the origins of Margery Fish’s garden at East Lambrook,  which led to all sorts of mind-struggling with her husband Walter.  This week I want to turn to questions of planting the garden where, you probably won’t be surprised to hear there was also a clash of wills.   It meant that although she undoubtedly learned some lessons from him, and was always prepared to gratefully admit that,   she must have  needed all her patience to cope with his diktats.

Luckily she was a fast learner and a shrewd judge of when to make a stand. Her growing confidence gradually allowed her innate plantsmanship to develop and shine, so that after his death, when she had a completely free hand she could  make an inspirational garden on her own terms and without worrying about what Walter would say!

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A Gardener’s Revenge

Posted on 01/07/2023 by The Garden History Blog

Although I knew the name Margery Fish I didnt really realise how significant a character she was until I heard Catherine Horwood talk about her in one of the Gardens Trusts on-line lectures earlier this year.  Catherine recommended Margery’s first book – We Made a Garden published in 1956 – as a good starting point for understanding how and why she had such influence.   John Sales, the former head of gardens at the National Trust  was even more emphatic, arguing  as early as 1980 that “in the development of gardening in the second half of the twentieth century no garden has yet had greater effect” than her garden at East Lambrook in Somerset. In 1992 it was listed by English Heritage as Garde 1, ie as being of international significance. 

A second-hand copy was duly ordered and was read in just two short sittings. It’s an easy read, with amusing anecdotes and insightful – and honest – comments on the whole process of creating- and maintaining-  a garden, especially when you disagree strongly with your dogmatic partner!

But more than that, while most gardening books tell us how to prune or sow We Made a Garden gives a fascinating insight into  the marriage of Margery and Walter Fish… which is perhaps why this post is called A Gardener’s Revenge?

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The non-existent plant that actually existed

Posted on 24/06/2023 by The Garden History Blog

Take a close look at this image of the Garden of Eden which appears on the  title page of John Parkinson’s Paradisi in Sole.  How many of the plants can you identify?  Are there any there you don’t recognise?

I was talking about this to an audience recently and explaining that some, like the cyclamen crocus and grapevine were plants which Parkinson probably grew in his garden, alongside relatively newly introduced exotics such as tulips and sunflowers.

But it also included plants, such as the pineapple that  he’d never actually seen and strange to report even one plant which we now know never even existed, although it had a long history in travellers tales and still lives on in legend.  Although the audience worked out which plant it was none of them  had a clue what it really was.

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