Gertrude Jekyll on Gardening

by Gertrude Jekyll, Penelope Hobhouse (Editor)

Selections from the British garden designer's writings provide a month-by-month guide to garden care and landscape design.

Genres: Gardening

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Gertrude Jekyll was an influential British garden designer, writer, and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and the USA and contributed over 1,000 articles to Country Life, The Garden and other magazines.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ms. Jekyll had definite ideas about color, form and function. She was not afraid to see what she liked and what she didn't liked. Throughout this book, you felt sympathy for her clients-because Ms. Jekyll talks about those without taste and then goes on to tell how she was able to recreate their disaster of a garden to something that she approved of.

But as with all tihings, Ms. Jekyll's style is from a different era. Roses, dahilias and irises were abundant. There must have been hybrids-because Ms. Jekyll gets on her high horse about an red-colored gallardia-but the hybrids didn't meet Ms. Jekyll's standards.

At the end, I was glad that I was not a member of Ms. Jekyll's circles because her high self-regard and her assurance that she and very few others were right became very tiring.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jekyll's work is interesting, but one must wade through a confusing series of bracketed comments from the editor to reach it.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Penelope Hobhouse's collection of Gertrude Jekyll 's writing, arranged by month, is a fabulous introduction to this famed gardener and plants woman's writing.