I was delighted when Jessica at Aurum Publishing offered me a copy of ‘The New English Garden’ by Tim Richardson to review. But then I thought, “no David! Don’t be so selfish – think of your readers.” And so, I have decided to forgo my copy in order that you might win one. Just how giving am I?
Here’s what Jessica has to say about the book.
“In The New English Garden distinguished garden writer Tim Richardson discusses twenty-five significant English gardens made or remade over the past decade. Together these represent a coherent overview of what remains probably the most inventive garden culture in the world.
With stunning photography from Andrew Lawson, The New English Garden presents all that is most interesting and arresting about garden making in England at the start of the twenty-first century.”
The gardens include Christopher Lloyd’s and Fergus Garrett’s Great Dixter, Dan Pearson’s Armscote Manor, Tom Stuart-Smith’s Mount St John and Piet Oudolf’s Scampston Hall. Hmm, perhaps I should have just bagged myself a copy after all.
‘The New English Garden’ will be published in mid-September and will cost £40. If you would like to win a brand new, unthumbed, shiny copy, here’s what to do:
leave a reply/comment on this post saying that you wish to enter, nominate your favourite garden and write a few words about what makes it special. It needn’t be a famous garden; just one that you love. Don’t worry too much about your nomination; this is simply to make the entries more interesting. The closing date is midnight on Friday 20th September 2013. I shall draw the winner out of an actual (if grubby) hat and notify the winner by email. Sorry to say that you must be a UK resident to enter (or at least have a UK postal address to which the book can be posted).
Good luck!
oooOOOooo
This competition is now closed. Thank you to everyone for commenting.
The winner is … Natalie at The Yarn Yard. Congratulations!
The Anxious Gardener 
Thank you ffor sharing this
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Pingback: My Favourite Garden | Old School Garden
My favourite garden is The Place for Plants at East Bergholt, Suffolk. With its giant ancient magnolia trees, it is a most magical and serene place.
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Thanks Lisa – I knew East Bergholt many years ago; long before The Place for Plants opened. Dave
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My favourite garden belongs to my mum. She lives in a ground floor Edinburgh tenement flat and a few years ago during a gale, part of the stonework from four storeys above was dislodged and it landed in her little front garden. Fortunately this happened in the middle of the night when she was in bed.
After the repairs were done to the building (nine months of “temporary” emergency scaffolding later), she retrieved the lumps of stone, some a foot long in all directions, and built a rockery which has been known ever since as The Roof Garden.
The rest of her garden has been created for her to be easy to manage as she is now a green fingered 79 year old.
I would love to share the book with her!
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Hi Natalie, scary. I weed a bed that quite regularly has roof tiles fall on it. Not as bad as foot-long lumps of stone but lethal nonetheless. Dave
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Hi Dave. I’ve always loved Rosemary Verey’s Barnsley House gardens. Now sadly a hotel and only occasionally open to the publics, but a wonderfully diverse garden which holds many happy memoirists for me 🙂
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Thanks for that – Barnsley House looks beautiful (from what I could see – I love the laburnum walk). Name in the hat! Dave
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Hi David, I’m studying to be a garden designer and have just heard Dan Pierson and Piet Oudolf at an evening lecture at the Garden Museum in London – it was inspirational! This looks like a lovely book to have so, yes, please enter my name into your hat. I have many favourite gardens at the moment: Great Dixter is wonderful for atmosphere and inspirational planting, RHS Wisley for its stunning borders, Chelsea Physic Garden for the herbs, Perch Hill Farm for the glimpses of old Sussex amongst the dahlias but the very little known garden I love to watch over the seasons is a Green Flag awarded Georgian garden in my parents’ village on the south Coast. Alverstoke Crescent Gardens is completely community run and managed, and has been renovated over the past few years to be as it was in its Georgian heyday, overlooking the Solent. The northerly aspect of the garden faces onto a white crescent of houses, built to replicate the crescent at Bath so the light is beautiful. Private houses now block the view to the sea but info boards reveal the history. It’s such a tranquil space with beautiful, imaginative planting, a fountain and some very rare trees including a giant flowering magnolia – and just as lovely all year round.
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Thanks Caro, I’d never heard of Alverstoke and as it is NGS and quite near me …. I had a great day at Perch Hill a couple of years ago – the cutting garden was so impressive. Name in the hat. Dave
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Sounds like a brilliant book and it’s very generous of you to offer it up. I should declare an interest though as they’re the same publishers as my forthcoming book so it’s best not to put me in the draw. 😉 Hope you don’t mind me waffling on about my favourite garden though because it’s such a great topic. I can just imagine sitting in a pub with gardening bloggers and discussing this until the wee small hours. It is so hard to choose but I’ve narrowed it down to 2. It’s either Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage or the Walled Garden at West Dean. I loved the simple and stunning beauty of Derek Jarman’s garden which is in such stark contrast to the bleak surroundings. I love his vision to create what he did in such an unpromising place. And West Dean – well it’s my idea of gardening heaven. All those glasshouses and cold frames and the micro-climate created by those walls. I’m strangely drawn to Victorian walled gardens and their creation for functionality and production and West Dean is, I think, the best I have visited. Good luck to everyone who has entered.
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Ashamed to say that I still haven’t been to Jarman’s Prospect Cottage since you wrote about it a while ago. And you know I rate West Dean very highly. Thanks for contributing WW. Dave
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Oh, for a UK address! Still, my favorite is Tony Avent’s Juniper Level Botanic Garden in Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s been an inspiration for my own gardens and a great service to those of us in Zone 7b.
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Sorry you can’t enter (not my rules!) but thanks for contributing. It looks a lovely garden from their website. Next time I’m in North Carolina ….. Dave
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That looks like the sort of book I’d like to own…
My favourite garden to visit is Millgate House in Richmond, Yorkshire. I love it because it’s right in the centre of the town and you’d never suspect that it was there until you stumble upon it. It’s a lovely example of what can be done with a relatively small plot and an inspiration to all to get rid of your lawn, and build a garden with winding paths and secluded seating areas. I can’t recommend it enough.
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That’s interesting Rob. I was in Richmond in March walking the Coast and Coast and did look into staying at Millgate House – it was just a little expensive for a single room though. Dave
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I’m not entering in the competition but I would still like to share my favourite garden. Crathes Castle Garden is my special place and in particular the walled garden. The walled garden is not big as castle gardens go and I think that was an additional attraction for me. I lived in an apartment not far away and used to pretend the walled garden was mine. It is stocked with an amazing selection of plants that give interest throughout the year – not a mean achievement for such a northerly position in the U.K. Then, head full of plants and ideas, I could go for a walk in the forest area and of course finish in their excellent tea-room!
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It looks gorgeous on the NT site, Amelia but not a part of the country I’ve ever been to. Are you sure you don’t want to enter? You have family in England I think? Dave
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Reblogged this on Old School Garden.
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Hi David, yes please I’d like to enter your competition.
I’ve visited and seen a few gardens over the years and it’s tricky finding one that I’d call a favourite- some have great borders or other spaces, configurations of plants, superb features and so on. Maybe its because its relatively fresh in my mind, but the one that does stand out is Felbrigg walled garden in Norfolk (also a local one to me and so visited quite often).
Why? Well I guess its the way the garden team (including volunteers and community gardeners), have managed to create a space that meets so many different needs and in a way that seems to hang together naturally;
* a strong, traditional formal layout containing exuberant borders with super combinations of many different plants
* a warm, contained red brick walled space with a fountain and dovecote as strong structural elements
* glasshouses with old favourite, traditional exotics and other ‘interesting’ plants
* community food growing in plots that are obviously lovingly cared for
* a children’s gardening area complete with digging pits, tools, washing facilities and novelties such as chickens running free, willow teepees and tunnels
* newer areas set out with mediterranean style planting, meadows and feature shrubs
* plenty of comfortable seats to entice you to stop, look and soak up the atmosphere
* lots of attractive information about the plants themselves (all the significant ones carefully and attractively labelled) as well as some of the current tasks in the garden and information/quiz sheets for the kids.
All in all a visit to Felbrigg is a tremendously rich experience where the general public, serious gardener and trained horticuluralist (and their children) can come together and have their curiosity tickled, be enthused, amazed and go away feeling regenerated.
If you’re interested, my blog ‘Old School Garden’ features a number of gardens, gardening advice as well as a range of other garden and play-related articles and pictures. Please pay me a visit at http://www.audaxdesign.co.uk !
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Hi Nigel, funnily enough I was in Norfolk a few weeks ago and hoped to visit Felbrigg. Sadly, as far as I could make out it only opened at weekends and so a visit wasn’t possible. Good choice. Name in the hat. Dave
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Thanks David- I think Felbrigg garden is open every day 11 – 5.30 until early November, so if you’re around again….
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Looks like a great book, it would be rude not to enter ;). My favourite garden, heads and tails, is Gravetye Manor, which I’ve just written about after visiting recently. A beautiful setting, well structured garden with such planting! And the lovely oval walled kitchen garden. I’m still swooning…
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Gosh, heads and tails Sara? There’s a recommendation. Name in the hat! Dave
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Hi Dave, I would like to enter and can give you a UK address should I be lucky enough to win. But so hard to choose a favourite. I’m going to say the garden that has inspired me the most and shown me how to garden with the conditions you have so that would have to be Beth Chatto’s garden, she is lucky to have different zones that have entirely different gardening conditions but to choose within that it would be the gravel garden that taught me you can garden without irrigation. Thanks for being so generous.
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Hi Christina, I’ve never been to Beth Chatto’s garden but would dearly like to. Consider yourself entered in the competition. Dave
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Favorite garden: Great Dixter. Reason: I visited numerous times before working there as a student. The staff is uncommonly generous in their time and knowledge, eager to share both with students and visitors, young and old, seasoned gardener or beginner. I’ve learned tips and tricks at Dixter that I’ll be able to use at my job in the States that can only make the garden better!
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Hi Debs, great choice and one that I would share. Name in the hat. Dave
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Hi David, I’d like to enter your contest. I live in Ireland, but I have an address in Northern Ireland which I can use. My favorite garden is in Shercock, County Cavan in Ireland. The garden’s owner is my friend Susan who is an avid gardener and is doing her best to teach me at least the basics! She is very generous with sharing her plants when they need dividing, I love how she has created different rooms within the garden, and how they all flow easily into one another. She and her husband have brought in a lot of natural stone work, too, including building a tower! It is a wonderful experience every time I visit their garden! Thanks for the chance to win the book! Dana
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Hi Dana, my favourite garden (along with Great Dixter) is probably a private garden too. It belongs to my mother-in-law and it was her skill and enthusiasm that really propelled me into becoming a professional gardener. Name in the hat. Dave
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Oh wow, what a testament to your mother-in-law’s gift! Thank you Dave. 🙂
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I think the garden I’ve loved best was the first few square feet I looked after when I was seven. Now – I’d nominate Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens and Furzey House Gardens for their atmospheres. The first is exotic and hidden, the second open and reflective. What a book!
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Thanks for those Esther – I’ve googled them as I don’t know either of them. Good choices. Name in the hat. Dave
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If I can’t enter a Scottish garden, I’m not playing. No wonder we’re going independent. Rank prejudice. Vive l’Ecosse libre!
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Isn’t Scotland part of the UK? For the time being at least.
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My Dear Mr flag-waving K, you rail against non-existent rules and restrictions. There is nothing at all to stop you ‘entering’ a Scottish garden nor indeed a Malaysian one if you so wish. So please do play – I should like to hear about your favourite. D
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My favourite garden is in the past. My dad’s small front garden where he planted marigolds, roses, pansies and sweet williams. It wasn’t extraordinary by any means but I used to follow him round as a small child whilst he carefully tended it all the while developing my own love for gardening.
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Thanks for that Karen. Your name is in the hat! Dave
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