The Garden: An English Love Affair: One Thousand Years of Gardening

by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall

Join a landscape architect and garden designer on a trip through time to study the complex and exciting story of the English art of gardening. See how garden styles, from medieval times through the present, have reflected political, economic, social, and cultural life and values. Examine the gardens of cottages and mansions and those in the country and the city. Investigate the influence of technological advances such as the greenhouse, the lawn mower, and plant hybridization. Glorious full-color photographs of exquisite gardens, illuminated manuscript pages, beautiful paintings and other works of art illustrate this fascinating exploration that captures the overwhelming love of flowering plants that has always inspired for English gardeners.

Genres: Nonfiction

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

From Wikipedia: Jane Margaret Fearnley-Whittingstall (née Lascelles)[1] (born 1939 in Kensington, London) is a writer and garden designer with a diploma in landscape architecture. She won two gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show.[2]

Personal life
Daughter of Colonel John Hawdon Lascelles OBE of the King's Royal Rifle Corps and Janet Hamilton Campbell Kidston,[3] she and her husband, Robert Fearnley-Whittingstall, of a landed gentry family formerly of Watford and Hawkswick, Hertfordshire,[4] have two children: Sophy and Hugh, the celebrity chef. (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...) They have six grandchildren.

Career
She gained a Diploma in Landscape Architecture from Gloucestershire College of Art and Design in 1980 and has designed numerous gardens in the UK and abroad.

From 2005 to 2007 she wrote a weekly column about family life, in The Times. She has also written for The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Oldie, Woman's Weekly, The Garden, The English Garden and Gardens Illustrated.[citation needed]

Reviews

[Sophy H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm, this was ok but it was very human-laden! In that, I mean there was lots of quoting of historical figures, descriptions of lives in the changing centuries and concentration on lots of human minutiae.
I would have been happier with more emphasis on the gardens themselves.

Good illustrations however and the odd enlightening garden titbit.

Some skim reading did occur 😶😬