What do we expect of gardens - when we make them and when we visit them? Could we get more from them, if we thought harder about what it is we want and why we make gardens? This book approaches the experience of being in a garden from many different angles, questioning many of our easily-adopted assumptions and suggesting ways of getting more from any garden, whether it is our own or one we are visiting.
What are gardens for?
Garden Visiting
Garden Criticism
The Garden Critic in Action
Taste
Style and Meaning
Memory and Atmosphere
The Ten Best Gardens:
1. Wang Shi Yuan, Suzhou, China
2. Hidcote Manor, Gloucestershire, England
3. Ninfa, Lazio, Italy
4. Nezu Museum garden, Tokyo, Japan
5. Innisfree, Millbrook, New York, USA
6. The Alhambra/Generalife complex, Granada, Spain
7. Lotusland, California, USA
8. Villa Lante, Bagnaia, Italy
9. Mount Stewart, Newtownards, Northern Ireland
10 = Fenton House, Hampstead, London
10= The Majorelle Garden. Marrakech. Morocco
RORY STUART worked as a teacher of English literature - in India and America; at Uppingham School, Westminster School, and The Cheltenham Ladies' College. He inherited a Cotswold cottage with a beautiful garden and began to look at plants and gardens critically, which eventually led to a course in Garden Design. He set up as a designer, and began writing articles for magazines including Hortus, The Garden, The English Garden and The Historic Gardens Review. He has led garden tours of France, India and Italy and his fascination with
gardens has now taken him to Rome, where he is learning how to grow plants in the challenging conditions of the hills outside the city. His other title for Frances Lincoln is Gardens of the World (9780711231306).
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