Overview

Explore the gardens, discover their themes and meets the gardeners in the company of The Times garden writer Stephen Anderton and award-winning photographer Charles Hawes. The book provides a history of gardening in Wales, and details on the personalities and ambitions that have created this eclectic mix, including large and small, contemporary and timeless, and country and town gardens, all beautifully documented through colour photographs. Featuring Bodysgallen, Erddig, powis Castle and The Veddw. An excellent and inspirational gift for any budding gardener, or for those with an interest in horticulture.

Full Product Details

9781905582204

Table of Contents

Reviews

Anderton and Hawes are a perfect combination in this sumptuous volume highlighting 20 gardens in Wales – illuminating and provocatively witty, keenly observed and described in text and image with passion and in-depth knowledge. ‘ . . . today we live in a Golden Age of gardens. We have never had it so good,’ Anderton writes in the Introduction. And yet many of the gardens of Wales, some of the most innovative in Britain (both historic and contemporary), are still unknown. Powis Castle and Bodnant, maybe, but where else? The response from most, even the ‘garden savvy’, would probably be an embarrassed shake of the head. ‘It is time somebody wrote about them,’ the author asserts and his intention for this volume is ‘not a historic treatise on Welsh gardening history’ but ‘what is happening in a cross-section of lively Welsh gardens, to present a picture of how gardens tick, now’. By making a careful selection of a limited number, we are treated to more than a perfunctory glance and a list of contents, dates and opening times. The author and photographer take us into the heart of each individual garden and offer us something of the enthusiasms and dedication of the people who designed them and have nurtured them lovingly for years, indeed, lifetimes. There is a lively and exacting balance between the grandiose and architecturally theatrical and the more idiosyncratic design and selection of plants on a smaller scale by individuals, all of whom seem to balk against their particular plot as being labelled ‘cottage garden’ with its implication of twee and gingham tablecloths at tea-time. The book moves from the restoration at Aberglasney ‘like an old Quaker dress salvaged from a trunk’, to ‘the grand manner indeed’ of Bodnant with its sweeping views across the mountains of north Wales; the flouncy pink and red begonias of Bodrhyddan – ‘the faint-hearted should put on their sunglasses’; the characterful hotel garden at Bodysgallen near Llandudno; the ‘collector’s garden’ called Cae Hir in Ceredigion, designed by the Akkermans who moved to Wales in the early 1980s; the ‘great love and earnest theatricality’ of the garden at Dewstow Monmouthshire with its subterranean caverns; Christine Shand’s 6.5 acres near Fishguard which she has been cultivating since 1994, ‘a heart-lifting surprise, a cache of gorgeous, sophisticated gardening at the end of a rough country lane’; the ‘bizarre, fascinating, and delightfully, ruthlessly masculine’ garden created by third-generation nursery man and landscape gardener Alan Hall at Nant-yr-Eryd in Ceredigion, west Wales; the National Botanic Gardens of Wales, emerging as an ‘enduring icon’ for Wales, and on to William Clough Ellis’ quirky creation at Plas Brondanw with abounding heroic sculptures and ornate ironwork painted in joyful turquoise and yellow, the ‘signature colours he also used at Portmeirion and meant to be a poor man’s verdigris and gold’. We are also guided around Charles Hawes’ own garden, the Veddw in Monmouthshire, with its pink wave-form walls, wave hedges, a black jagged wooden fence and, at its core, a series of yew-hedged rooms, ‘clunked together like dice thrown into a gulley.’ ‘Contemporary romantic’, yes, cottage garden it is most certainly not. This book is a delight, a fascinating read and a visual treasure. -- Jane MacNamee @ www.gwales.com Discovering Welsh Gardens illustrates how 20 gardens have been inspired by the wonderful, wild landscapes that surround them and how they pursue new ideas or old traditions. Experience their heart-lifting successes and sometimes therir failures. Featuring classics such as Bodnant, Powis Castle and the National Botanic Garden of Wales, and un sung gems such as Dyffryn farnant, Lower House and the underground Grottoes of Dewstow. A must for gardeners in Wales and everyone interested in gardens. -- Publisher: Graffeg

Author Information

Stephen is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and lecturer both here and abroad. He writes weekly for The Times and for many magazines. Stephen has been involved in a number of books including Rejuvenating a Garden (1998), Urvban Sanctuaries (2001) and was the presenter on television for Britain's Best Back Gardens 2003 and 2004 (ITV).

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available