When you visit a garden, do you prefer to walk around on your own or to take a guided tour? A few years ago I wrote something on this topic but never used it. Recently, though, cleaning up my computer, I came across the article and sent it to my friend Anne Wareham. …
My son named it the ‘mosquito trap’ and he wasn’t wrong. The small pool of water in a depression in one of the large boulders on the lake side of York House was a perfect place for mosquitoes to breed. But the watery space was also an opportunity. The question, though, was how…
My garden is one of the true pleasures of my life. When I moved into my new house about a year and a half ago, the garden’s potential excited me, but I knew that I needed time to assess how to develop it to its best advantage. Enormous glacial boulders surround the house, protecting it…
One of the great advantages of visiting gardens is collecting ideas for your own. Recently I was in Japan, and while there, I visited several magnificent gardens. I drank in their quiet beauty. I revelled in the shape and placement of rocks. I marvelled at the cloud pruning that revealed the…
It can be risky to review a garden with a big reputation. When that garden is as well known as Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny, the risk is enormous. Will I like it? Everyone else does, so why should I be different? Certainly I knew what to expect: the iconic Japanese bridge, floating waterlilies,…