Lives of the Great Gardeners

by Stephen Anderton

Overview

Entertaining and accessible—the lives of the men and women, many of them multitalented artists, who created some of the world’s most extraordinary gardens, and whose legacy continues to inspire.

Throughout history, great gardeners have risen from all walks of life. Some have been aristocratic amateur gardeners, others professional designers with an international practice. Some have come to garden-making from sculpture or painting; some have been hands-on nurserymen or botanists. What they all have in common is the ability to take an idea and develop it to meet the needs and aesthetics of their times.

The book is organized into four thematic sections. Gardens of Ideas moves from the politically allusive gardens of eighteenth-century England to Charles Jencks’s Scottish garden inspired by twenty-first-century cosmography. Gardens of Straight Lines explores the lives of the great formalist gardeners, from Le Nôtre at Versailles to the rational English minimalism of contemporary designer Christopher Bradley-Hole. Gardens of Curves opens with that great exponent of the English landscape garden, “Capability” Brown, and moves on to the extraordinary Brazilian designer Roberto Burle Marx. Finally, Gardens of Plantsmanship arcs from the father of naturalistic planting, William Robinson, to the sweeping prairie-style of Piet Oudolf.

With images of gardens as they were originally seen, together with portraits of their makers and an outstanding text by the award-winning gardens writer for The Times, this book will appeal to garden lovers everywhere.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780500773673
Publisher:	Thames & Hudson
Publication date:	12/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	59 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Stephen Anderton is a journalist, author, lecturer, and broadcaster. He is The Times's longstanding writer on gardens and gardening.

Table of Contents

Introduction 6

Gardens of Ideas 14

Wen Zhengming 16

Nature gently re-imagined

Hachijo Toshihito and Hachijo Toshitada 23

Precise control of plants and people

William Kent 28

Creator of the painterly picturesque

Henry Hoare 34

Stourhead and the Claudian idyll

Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau 42

Enlightenment ruler and passionate gardener

Thomas Jefferson 47

President and scientific plant pioneer

Ian Hamilton Finlay 52

Poet, artist and literary gardener

Sir Roy Strong 58

Allusion and autobiography at the Laskett

Charles Jencks 66

Interpreter in landforms of theories of the cosmos

Alexander Reford 74

Champion of the conceptual

Gardens of Straight Lines 82

André Le Notre 84

Arranger of exquisite geometric illusions

William Nesfield 90

The military approach to vistas and avenues

Sir Edwin Lutyens 96

'By measure we must live'

Lawrence Johnston 104

Designing with vistas and enclosed spaces

Russell Page 112

Master of scale and composition

Nicole de Vésian 120

Topiary Mediterranean style

Penelope Hobhouse 126

Renaissance principles in a modern idiom

Christopher Bradley-Hole 132

Harmony through order and pure proportions

Fernando Caruncho 138

Light, water and the language of geometry

Gardens of Curves 146

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown 148

Ideal landscapes on a grand scale

Humphry Repton 156

Scenic alterations and pictorial inclinations

Frederick Law Olmsted 164

Designing for urban life and public enjoyment

Edna Walling 170

An Arts and Crafts gardener in Australia

Thomas Church 176

A modernist maker of gardens for people

Alan Bloom 182

Developer of island beds and popular plants

Roberto Burle Marx 188

Graphic forms and native flora in Brazil

John Brookes 194

The room outside

James Van Sweden 200

Modern, naturalistic gardens

Gardens of Plantsmanship 206

William Robinson 208

Father of naturalistic flower gardening

Claude Monet 216

Painting with plants

Gertrude Jekyll 222

Arranging colours in a harmonious whole

Vita Sackville-West 230

Formality of design and informality of planting

Mien Ruys 238

Experimenter with new materials and plants

Graham Stuart Thomas 244

Conserver of old plants and gardens

Lelia Caetani 252

A profusion of plants among the ruins

Rosemary Verey 258

International yet domestic grandeur

Christopher Lloyd 264

Adventurous and innovative gardener at Great Dixter

Beth Chatto 272

The right plant in the right place

Piet Oudolf 280

Pioneer of new perspectives in planting design

Steve Martino 288

Naturalistic planting in desert gardens

Further Reading 294

Sources of Illustrations 300

Index 301

Editorial Reviews

10/17/2016
Times of London gardening columnist Anderton (Discovering Welsh Gardens) pays homage to gardeners throughout history in this wonderfully illustrated book. The 40 biographies, which cover 500 years of gardening around the world, plow cleanly through the lives and work of each gardener. Anderton’s subjects are varied; he covers Dutchmen and Scotsmen and Asians; sculptors and scholars; and Penelope Hobhouse, Gertrude Jekyll, and Beth Chatto. The gardeners are grouped into four inventive chapters: “Gardens of Ideas,” “Gardens of Straight Lines,” “Gardens of Curves,” and “Gardens of Plantsmanship.” This organization springs from the author’s intelligent comprehension of the big garden picture. He includes contextual cross-references and, before each biography, lists events (often odd ones) from the gardeners’ birth and death years. Anderton’s style, erudite and whimsical, delightfully dominates: “Le Notre was no writer and, to our great loss, left little behind except a few plans. And, of course, Versailles.” The nearly 250 illustrations balance Anderton’s words in a sprightly and convivial marriage. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"From this compilation of great gardeners, modern landscape architects and designers and home gardeners can learn some of the history and development of their art and craft."

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