Writing/Literature

My new book: Planting the Dry Shade Garden

Planting The Dry Shade Garden by Graham Rice (Timber Press) I have a new book out next month! The top-selling American garden writer Tracy DiSabato-Aust says about it: "Graham Rice will take your dry shade garden from ho-hum to hip-hip-hooray." Well, there's a quote for you!

Planting The Dry Shade Garden, published by Timber Press, fearlessly tackles the most difficult situation in the garden, the place that makes gardeners despair and want to move house, or give up gardening and take up bridge – that dry and shady place where you think nothing will grow. Well, think again. Don't assume it's no better than the ideal site for the shed. I've put together a whole book full of plants that will do well in dry shade and bring beauty to your garden.

I've also laid out some simple guidance on how to make dry shade both less dry and less shady. These are basic things you can do to expand the range of plants you can grow in dry shade.

So combining simple steps to improve the situation with a smart choice of plants, dry shade ceases to be a problem and becomes another area of your garden that you can make beautiful. Planting The Dry Shade Garden explains how.

The photography in the book is mainly the work of award-winning photographer judywhite so not only is the book packed with good advice, but the pictures reveal the beauty of the plants you can grow.

The book is published by Timber Press in North America on 16 August 2011 and Britain on 1 September 2011. Please check out the book's North American website at DryShadeGarden.com and its British website at DryShadeGarden.co.uk. And why not place an advance order at amazon.com or amazon.co.uk and receive the book as soon as possible when it's published?


“The elephant in the garden”

Bad Tempered Gardener,Anne Wareham,Charles Hawes,Veddw. Image ©GardenPhotos.com (all rights reserved)
At first I thought that this image might itself might be my review. No words, just this image making clear how many passages in The Bad Tempered Gardener by Anne Wareham (Frances Lincoln) I’d singled out and marked. But this could be ambiguous – had I marked passages because they were outstandingly good... or the other thing?

Well, I marked those that were especially funny, pithily sharp, were wildly hyperbolic, or impressively wise – plus one or two that were startlingly contradictory, that I especially agreed with, that were daft ill-considered, or were just very well written. But I started to mark so many that I had to become more rigorous, otherwise I’d have burst the binding with so many tags.

She’s sharp, perceptive and funny (that’s the line for the publisher to quote, or the next bit) and skewers traditional horticultural views with delight. She sounds off about nurseries (“the nursery habit is at the bottom of the abysmal British garden”), plant collections, sloppy garden writing, “‘King Edward’-type daffodils” (deliberately misnaming them after a potato). She champions ground covers of preposterous invasiveness, wood chip mulch, Erigeron ‘Profusion’, honest plant descriptions, garden centers, and black water-coloring dye. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or not, like the best garden writing it makes you think.

In particular, she quite rightly complains that all commentary on gardens is positive, sometimes exuberantly and untruthfully so. She’s right, and this is pretty much unique to gardens. Reviews of movies, plumbers, restaurants, political campaigns, exhibitions, cars, even mothers… all just say it as the author sees it. And, often, dislike of the subject inspires fine and entertaining writing. But not gardens and, oddly, not reviews of garden books. When I helped run Plants & Gardens magazine (RIP) long ago, we were praised for our honest book reviews. But no else has been prepared to say that a garden book gives bad advice or recommends poor plants. It’s just not reviewed. Mustn't upset potential advertisers.

Bad Tempered Gardener,Anne Wareham,Charles Hawes,Veddw. Image ©Charles Hawes/veddw.com (all rights reserved)

And on gardening itself: “Gardening is boring. It is repetitious, mind-blowingly boring, just like housework. All of it – sowing seeds, mowing, cutting hedges, potting up, propagating is boring, and all of it requires doing over and over again….” Again, she’s right, mostly - I quite like sowing seeds. What’s odd is that her garden in Wales seems to have miles of hedges and acres of grass – two features which require endless hours of the most boring jobs of all. Presumably, as she says, “they’re mostly enjoyable for the result and not the process.” I have to say the garden at Veddw (above, click to enlarge) is wonderful (see pages 39/40 of the book – on writers who review gardens without visiting...).

I should say that while not all North American readers will understand the targets, many will enjoy the attitude and the style. Christopher Lloyd is very popular in the States and admired writers like Allen Lacy and Wayne Winterrowd are in a similar tradition. But, although her targets and assumptions are Brit-centric, North American readers will enjoy the ride.

All we need now is a weekly newspaper column of honest garden, plant and garden book reviews. Wanna share it, Anne?

Book points:

  • Some wobbly editing: someone can’t decide if contractions are OK or if they are not.
  • With great respect to Anne's husband/photographer Charles Hawes, the designer is absolutely right to use the pictures relatively small, making it clear this is a book for reading and that the images illustrate the text. The text is not just the squiggly stuff round the pictures.

            


Thank you for images to:

Book and tags: GardenPhotos.com
Veddw garden: Charles Hawes


Note: writer at work

Many books use quotations at the heads of their chapters and, frankly, I don’t always find the dollops of Shakespeare or Milton, Jekyll or Sackville-West very inspiring. But in The Living Garden by Jane Powers (full review in a week or two), there are some unusually thoughtful and apposite choices.

They may lose a little of their power, detached from the chapters they introduce, but here’s a few examples anyway:

“Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay.”
George Meredith.

“Out of the soil the buds come,
The silent detonations
Of power wielded without sin.”
R. S. Thomas

“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.”
Henry David Thoreau

“A good Garden may have some weeds.”
Thomas Fuller

“Time is what prevents everything happening at once.”
John Archibald Wheeler

Bodes well for the book as a whole, doesn't it.

Read more about The Living Garden by Jane Powers


The View from Great Dixter

ViewGreatDixter9781604692150lA few weeks ago I reviewed Christopher Lloyd: His Life at Great Dixter, Stephen Anderton’s controversial biography of Christopher Lloyd. But there’s also been a second book, The View from Great Dixter (Timber Press). This is an altogether more comfortable read but provides a rich and multi-faceted portrait of the man, his house, his garden and his plants.

For the book is made up entirely of recollections from a wide range of Dixter visitors and friends of Christo, each personal memory contributing to the picture in the same way as the plants in Dixter’s Long Border are all both important in themselves and but also help build the complete display.

The spread of contributors is impressive. From Britain they include Rosemary Alexander, Beth Chatto, Ian Hodgson, Alan Titchmarsh and Joy Larkcom, plus Dublin’s Helen Dillon. From North America there’s Cole Burrell, Tom Cooper, Joe Eck, Tom Fischer, Dan Hinkley, Marco Polo Stefano, Wayne Winterrowd and more. Together with Fergus Garrett, of course, Christo’s inspired choice to take Dixter into the future. All unafraid to express the full breadth of their recollections.

One current that I noticed running through the book is that many visitors were wary, if not downright scared, at the prospect of first meeting Christo – but were quickly won over. I was a little apprehensive myself. Tom Fischer, for example, on the staff of an American gardening magazine when they first met and now Editor-in-Chief at the company publishing the book. On first meeting Christo he says: “…the chief emotion I felt was pure terror.” But things soon changed. “As it turned out…,” he says, “under that formidable exterior Christo turned out to be the soul of kindness…”

Family, friends (some from the world of opera), gardeners, plantspeople, designers, writers, painters – all help us remember Christo (in all his moods) and help the many people who knew him only from his writing get a full sense of him and his huge influence.

And, I should mention, no fees were paid to contributors - we all gave our contributions to help support the future of Great Dixter. (Yes, I’m in there too.)

          


Online postings in March

Here’s another update of my work that has appeared online in the last month. Just click the links to go to the pages.

Transatlantic Plantsman blog

Newly redesigned and upgraded last month, in new colours and with more posts. And, with my most recent post, celebrating 500 posts on this blog! Thanks for being with me for the ride.
Royal Horticultural Society New Plants blog
Here are the plants featured this month.
Continuing my choices from plants for special uses and in familiar groups awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (AGM):
Be sure to take a look at all my selections of AGM plants.

And continuing my choices of plants recently award the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM).


Snow, bears, spruces and Zimbabwe

Hamamelis,Pallida,snow. Image ©GardenPhotos.com (all rights reserved)

Now back in Pennsylvania, where some surprises (good and bad) awaited me.

Firstly, we’ve just had three or four inches of snow which has weighed down and smothered the snowdrops but given extra charm to the witch hazel. Its temporary beauty almost, but not quite, makes up for it not being what it was supposed to be (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’) and so having no scent.

Secondly, just a few hours after I got back yesterday, a noise alerted me to a black bear rolling a bird feeder around the deck and getting the seeds out. We banged on the window and he made an unhurried retreat. A few hours later, another noise - he was back lapping up the spilled seeds. You know you’re home when there’s a black bear on your deck.

Thirdly, most of the needles on the three spruces outside my window have turned brown while I was away. Not sure why, but the trees are now far more brown than green.

Next, a copy of the new book, The Living Garden, from the excellent Irish garden writer Jane Powers was waiting for me. I’ll be reviewing it here when I’ve read it. One thing immediately strikes me, on a bleary flick through before collapsing into jet-lagged sleep. Each chapter is launched with a quotation, a thing many writers do, but her choices are especially thoughtful. No great dollops of Gertrude Jekyll, thank goodness, but there’s the wonderful Welsh poet R. S. Thomas:

“Out of the soil the buds come,
The silent detonations
Of power wielded without sin.”

Lastly, I’d listened to quite a lot of the radio news coverage on Libya while I was in England and never heard one mention of Zimbabwe, the former British colony where the atrocities committed by President Mugabe were certainly as appalling as those of Colonel Gaddafi. But, driving home from the airport, I was surprised to hear the lack of action on Zimbabwe promptly discussed on the otherwise pale and unremarkable public radio news.

More snow forecast for tonight. I wonder when the hellebores and snowdrops will emerge…

LATER (17 April): Last night's torrential rain and vicious winds finally ended the very very long display from the hamamelis. Snowdrops have come and gone, hellebores are almost at their peak.


Online postings in February

Here’s another update of my work that has appeared online in the last month. Just click the links to go to the pages.

Royal Horticultural Society New Plants blog
Scaevola Suntastic: New from Jersey Plants Direct
Actaea pachypoda 'Misty Blue': New for 2011
Zinnia ‘Queen Red Lime’: New from Plants of Distinction
Iris sibirica ‘Scramble’: New from Cotswold Garden Flowers
Uncinia rubra Everflame
: New ornamental sedge
Canna Tropicanna Black: New for 2011

Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit plants
Continuing my choices from plants awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (AGM):
Ten Easy Alpines which have received the AGM.
Be sure to take a look at all my selections of AGM plants.

And continuing my choices of plants recently award the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM).
Amaranthus cruentus 'Oeschberg'
Be sure to take a look at all the recent AGM winners I've written up.


Transatlantic Plantsman blog
Newly redigned and upgraded this month , in new colours and with more posts.
February’s flowers
"Green" gardens can be modern and stylish
Hellebores and snowdrops at East Lambook Manor
Amazing new hellebore hybrid
Our bird count results
Transatlantic Plantsman is now Transatlantic Gardener
Hellebores and snowdrops on Pennylvania
Hellebore season
Gertrude Jekyll’s primroses live on
Growing food is not weird
Is this new iris good enough?
Virus free foliage pelargoniums
Classic geranium disease-fre at last
The ice flows
My apples are treated with beetle goo!
Who mangled my bird feeder?
Hellebore slide show – 168 pictures
Christopher Lloyd: His Life at Great Dixter
Snowdrop bulb sold for world record £357 ($576)



Recent postings online

Guardian,clay soil,plants for clay Here’s another update of my work that has appeared online in the last month. Just click the links to go to the pages.

The Guardian newspaper
Plants for clay soil (left, click to go to the page)

The Daily Telegraph newspaper
10 new and improved fruit, veg and flowers

Royal Horticultural Society New Plants blog
Yucca Bright Star: New from Notcutts
Hemerocallis ‘Vanilla Fluff’: New double daylily
Astilbe ‘Mighty Pip': New for 2011
Lobelia ‘Superstar’: New for 2011
Twelve new irises: From Cayeux Iris
Verbascum 'Blue Lagoon': First ever blue verbascum

Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit plants
Continuing my choices from plants awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (AGM):
Plants to grow with hellebores which have received the AGM..
Be sure to take a look at all my selections of AGM plants.

And continuing my choices of plants recently award the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM).
Bergenia 'Eric Smith'

Be sure to take a look at all the recent AGM winners I've written up.

Transatlantic Plantsman blog
Shooting in the snow
Quiet color in the snowy garden
Amazing acer for winter stems
Fishy catch is no longer served
New series on plant combinations
Garden bird counts coming up soon
Winter color - and not from flowers
Two new lectures on the way
Thinking about chrysanthemums - in January?
World's first blue verbascum
Where does our bird seed come from?


My recent online articles

Latest Award of Garden Merit winner Here’s another update of my work that has appeared online in the last month. Just click the link to go to the page.

Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit plants
Continuing my choices from plants awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (AGM):

Ten traditional winter vegetables which have received the AGM..

Be sure to take a look at all my selections of AGM plants.

And continuing my choices of plants recently award the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.

Sweet pea ‘Cherub Crimson’

Ipomoea lobata (above, click to go to the page)

Be sure to take a look at all the recent AGM winners I've written up.

Royal Horticultural Society NewPlants blog
Over on my Royal Horticultural Society New Plants blog I’ve posted about these new plants:

Tradescantia ‘Sunshine Charm’

Sweet pea ‘Villa Roma Scarlet’

Hemerocallis ‘Black Stockings’

Malus (crab apple) Jelly King (‘Mattfru’)

Delphinium Highlander Series

Rose Pomponella (‘Korpompan’)

Transatlantic Plantsman blog
And here on my Transatlantic Plantsman blog, these are my recent posts:

Choisya Sundance - origins and abuses

Summer and fall meet winter and spring

Was the lobelia washed away?

Britain's top garden media folks get their awards


Britain's top garden media folks get their awards

The British garden writers - and other media garden people - had their annual Garden Media Guild bash in London this week and judging by the tweets from the pub afterwards it was quite an event. The next day, the tweets were all about going back to the pub to retrieve phones, coats, and underwear thoughtlessly forgotten in the fun the night before. I really missed it, this year - I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

ThinkinGardens, Anne WarehamBut, for gardeners on both sides of the Atlantic, the awards point to books, websites and other outlets for the expression of garden writing and horticulural insight of all kinds of which we should all take note. So here’s a few winners and finalists that my transatlantic readership in particular will find interesting or amusing.

The Website of the Year award went to Thinking Gardens (left, click on the image to go to the site). Quite right too. Anne Wareham, who runs the site, is committed to realistic garden criticism and campaigns against the platitudinous puffs that fill so many garden magazines or, as Anne puts it more effectively, are “caught in a fixed tradition of relentless admiration”. Why don’t writers about gardens write about them in the same way film critics write about films?

Blog of The year went to Midnight brambling, from Lia Leendertz. I like MidnightBramblingit because Lia brings together domestic life and garden life – and in particular because  it’s well written. She doesn’t post very often, but her blog is always worth reading. Amongst the finalists, Mark Dianco’s Otter Farm blog may bewilder some Americans but they'll certainly find it intrigung. Described as “a window into what's happening at the UK's only climate change farm - where we're planting olives, peaches, pecans, persimmons, apricots, szechuan pepper, vines” but lurching off into his entertaining asides. It’s very English. And all the better for that.

Of the award winning books, for Transatlantic readers I’d pick out The Kew Plant Glossary: An Illustrated Dictionary of Plant Identification Terms. As the judges said: “Thrill to the fact that not only will technical terms from abaxial to zygomorphous be at your fingertips, but that you will understand them.”!! This is an issue whose complexities befuddle many gardeners around the world – trust me, this book will help.

Of the journalism awards finalist Victoria Summerley of The Independent should have appeal beyond Britain’s shores especially in highlighting the idiosyncrasies of Britain’s gardens - not to mention its gardeners - as in this piece on colour. Sparky writing, and always a sense of fun. But: please will her newspaper’s website banish those huge and horrid pop up ads that blot out everything just as you're startibng to read? You can always check her Victoria's Backyard blog as well.

Andrew Lawson And finally, every year the members of the British Garden Media Guild votes for a Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, the award to photographer Andrew Lawson. If you’ve opened a garden book or magazine you’ve seen his work. Crucially, it seems to me, he trained as a painter and looking at plants and gardens as an artist seems to infuse everything he does.

OK… That’s just a few. You can check out the whole list of awards here. People not mentioned - don’t be offended, no room here for all fine work that was honoured. And, sorry, but there’s not much interest in broadcasting awards for shows never seen over in California and Nebraska. And anyway... if I go on too long, everyone will click off somewhere else. Congratulations, everyone. [And I lied about the underwear - I hope...]