This is a classic work by a gardener who combines a passionate love of his subject with a critical intelligence and a good helping of wit. The Well-Tempered Garden is packed with the sort of information keen gardeners crave – from planting, weeding and the pleasures of propagation to annuals, water lilies and vegetables. With a foreword by Anna Pavord.
Reviewed by Michael Leapman in Slightly Foxed Issue 59.
A Well-tempered Gardener
MICHEAL LEAPMAN
There is no good reason why an expert and dedicated gardener should be able to write elegant prose – and a survey of the gardening shelves of bookshops, along with the many magazines devoted to horticulture, will confirm that the two skills rarely converge. One glittering exception was Christopher Lloyd, known familiarly as Christo, who died in 2006 havebaying spent almost his entire adult life developing the five-acre garden at Great Dixter, his family home in East Sussex, where he was born in 1921. He wrote columns about it for Country Life and other journals, and produced seventeen books.
Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 59, Autumn 2018
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