Discovering Welsh Gardens: a review

Stephen Anderton's new book on gardens of Wales, photographed by Charles Hawes, came out almost simultaneously with yet another book on gardens of Wales. This is the one to buy. Anderton's historical commentary and critical assessment of the gardens he visits give them a reality that far surpasses the usual travelogue with photos. Charles Hawes photographs pick out detail and features that help give the reader an understanding of the spatial "narrative" of the gardens, and provide the necessary visual support to make Anderton's ideas easily accessible.

The nicks and shortcomings of some of the gardens Anderton describes give them a reality, for me, that the other book on gardens of Wales lacks. He places each garden within the larger landscape, writes about the light and exposure, spatial relationships, flaws, successes, "workarounds" to deal with difficult sites, the layered history of such old gardens as Powis Castle, all of which left me with a three-dimensional visual memory of the gardens. From the distance of a few months since reading this book, it's almost like I was really in these gardens -- the quality of the memories is as real as that of gardens I have actually visited.

Click on the photo to purchase this book from Amazon, or go to your favorite book store.

Another take on Chelsea: Thinkingardens

For a more iconoclastic take on the Chelsea Flower Show, I recommend you go to the Thinkingardens website. Stephen Anderton, Anne Wareham, and Corrine Julius (l to r) comment on their picks of the show, and offer insightful commentary on the gardens. Their "Best in Show" is not the judges' pick. You will also find a Thinkingardens link to a Royal Horticultural Society video of the three discussing the gardens, along with written commentary. Explore the RHS site for other information such as plant lists for many of the gardens. Just don't try to play any of the BBC videos; they don't work if you live outside the UK.

Germaine Greer also has an article on the 2007 Chelsea Flower Show posted on Thinkingardens. The Chelsea gardens are really exhibits, show gardens put together from plants grown for the most part, in highly artificial environments. They are in no respect real gardens, and Ms. Greer has had it with the artificiality of it all.

Thinkingardens is a website devoted to those who care about gardening and garden design as a serious endeavor - a concern rarely voiced in the U.S. and, from what I read there, not in the UK either.

(Photo: Charles Hawes from Thinkingardens website)

Is anybody listening?

I'm curious. Am I the only person in the United States who listens to the Vista lecture series podcasts? I find them stimulating, even exciting. They are a window onto another world for me, and they continue to give more even on a second, third, fourth listening. Do Americans think about their gardens; I mean think about more than how to do this, how to do that, how to make a stunning outdoor garden room. Has gardening been ruined by our garden industry, our "design/build" garden contractors, the big nurseries that offer "garden design" as a sideline service to sell more plants and more hardscaping, the general striving after big bucks?

Do we have any gardens like Veddw House, where Anne Wareham and Charles Hawes ask visitors to criticize their garden, invite writers such as Noel Kingsbury to critically assess and publish their opinions? (The Veddw site has links to critical writing on a number of other gardens. If you've been admiring the stunning photos of the prairie and steppe gardens at Lady Farm in Somerset, read about Anne's and Stephen Anderton's visit on the Veddw site. You'll be surprised.)

Yes, all of us are excited watching the snow drops and crocuses bloom after a long, dreary winter, but do we need 20 million closeup digital photos of them on blogs around the world? Surely there's more to be written about than that.