Championing historic gardens
The Historic Gardens Foundation is a small, dynamic NGO that champions important places across the globe. It operates through a worldwide network of garden enthusiasts and a handsome 50-page journal, … Continue reading
Anglo-chinois gardens
It can be hard to grasp the shift in France from the great classical, geometric gardens of Le Nôtre and his followers to the so-called anglo-chinois style which swept the … Continue reading
Abbotsbury Sub-Tropical Gardens
“Garden of the Year” is a strange award, and one that for me has led to disappointment and even bafflement. So I am delighted today to have a guest post … Continue reading
Dan Kiley: genius distilled
Regular readers will know of my great admiration for the American landscape designer Dan Kiley (1912-2004). I came across an unusual, unrealised garden plan of his, while conducting research for … Continue reading
Stourhead: the wrong kind of history?
Stourhead is one of the finest examples of an English landscape garden. Inspired by politics, travel, literature and painting, the eighteenth century English landscape movement introduced a radical new style of naturalistic garden … Continue reading
Grands Moulins revisited
Three years ago I wrote rather disparagingly about the jardins des Grands Moulins – Abbé Pierre, in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. It is a new, self-proclaimed sustainable park, and I wondered … Continue reading
Preserving Seaton Delaval Hall
There are a plethora of possible treatments available for historic properties. Experts talk about preservation, conservation, safeguarding, protection, restoration, adaptive re-use, repair, stabilisation, maintenance, rehabilitation, reconstruction. It can seem baffling. … Continue reading
West Green House
Redoubtable is a word that easily comes to mind when seeking to describe Marylyn Abbott. In her native Australia, she was for many years marketing manager for the Sydney Opera House … Continue reading
Snotty gogs and tithe maps: the garden at Veddw
Veddw is a modern garden, laid out among the gentle hills of the Welsh borders. It has an unusual genesis: not a plantswoman’s garden, not a gardener’s garden. Instead, its … Continue reading
Juxtaposition
Before on this blog I have written about the mysterious French designer Elie Lainé, and about the placing of modern artworks in historic gardens. So I was delighted to see … Continue reading
Worth a thousand denials?
Ronald Reagan (I think) said that one picture was worth a thousand denials. Although digital photography has rather blurred the issue of course since Reagan’s day, we still have that … Continue reading
Historic restoration as mille-feuille
It may be the only time that historic garden conservation has been compared to a flaky French pastry. But use of the term mille-feuille was not the only unusual thing … Continue reading
A million first steps
As you might expect, the British Library has an extraordinary wealth of archive material, including much that is essential study for the serious landscape historian. Its strap line, with some … Continue reading
Edens beyond the razor wire
The Royal Horticultural Society’s monthly members’ journal The Garden is a predictable mix of plant profiles, gardening tips and lists of UK gardens to visit. It is glossy and pleasant … Continue reading
Book review: A World of Gardens
Landscape history is a fast-growing academic field (excuse the pun), with new university courses being set up and increasing numbers of conferences arranged and books published. But there are still … Continue reading
Field Trip
Posts from landscapelover now feature on Google’s new app Field Trip. This seems to me a nifty concept that allows information about local places to pop up on your phone … Continue reading
Plant Hunting in Kashmir
I am delighted this month to have co-authored an article in Soiled and Seeded, a splendid on-line garden magazine that aims to provide “a rich and eclectic source of ideas, learned practices, history and … Continue reading
