We Made a Garden

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Still, I feel for Walter, wanting to have his own preferences and experiences considered – after all, it was his garden too. Sometimes in the summer my heart softens when I see its really pretty flat pink rosettes, but most of the time it is war. Now with a space of her own, Margery threw herself wholeheartedly into the making of a cottage garden, making up in enthusiasm and energy what she lacked in knowledge. It made me incredibly sad that her husband’s strong opinions on gardening clashed so much with her own.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. It is written in a lovely informal style discussing her successes and failures as she created her garden. Her good sense, practical knowledge and imaginative ideas will encourage and inspire gardeners everywhere. Fish’s aspiration to cultivate that most precious and slow-growing quality—the fundamental character of a good garden.

My grandmother's purple primroses are long gone and I cannot seem to get replacements to settle, but there is always salal, a native bush much-loved by florists for its leathery leaves, and loved by my family for the berries I use like blueberries in muffins. Walter died in 1947 and while Margery remembers him fondly throughout the book and his influence helped make her the gardener she became, she also obviously enjoyed the freedom she had after his death to shape the garden according only to her own ideas. After mulling over which long-distance path to walk for my 2017 hiking holiday, I decided to revisit my first love, The Ridgeway. This book charmed me by the cover and hypnotized me with old-fashioned language, both British and Latin.This is a charming little book by Margery Fish, offering anecdotal history of the choosing and planting of a home garden in England. But then, I’d stumbled into a vast and smiley world of strange expertise and Latin names; of pH and soil types; of grafting and pruning; of annuals and perennials and biennials; of seed sowing and cuttings; and, and… stuff.

At the time of purchase, I didn’t know that almost opposite, hidden in the lightly wooded valley below, down a long wooded driveway lay the Priory.From the secret to cultivating the smoothest lawn to the art of lifting and replanting tulip bulbs to the landscaping possibilities of evergreens, the diverse elements of successful gardening—and delightful writing—are bound together by Mr.

Margery clearly won the bulk of the battles even in the earlier years but it must have been much easier after his death. Margery Fish is entertaining and amusing but in this day and age, there is no place for the constant mentioning of Walter, the absolute domineering, tyrannical gobshite of a husband that not only disallowed Margery any autonomy in the garden, but actively delighted in wrecking her plans by pulling up plants, throwing soil from his projects on her work and generally berating her for every idea mentioned! Fish negotiate the terrain of their garden, by turns separately and together, often with humorous collisions. My only thought was to get the project under way before Walter took an interest in what I was doing and complicated matters with too much criticism and advice.She is writing this book after his death and can barely repress her delight at finally being able to plant certain things he had always forbidden her. They seem to have spent a lot of time building drystone walls, terraces and courtyards all over the garden, which sadly (perhaps) is not an option for most of us, and therefore not so interesting.