In the original dust jacket. Board binding the same as the cover.

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The unique style of the English garden is admired and copied all over the world. This book shows how the gardens of each period reflect the political, social and cultural life, how they affected architecture, clothes and manners, and how ideas and plants from other continents were embraced to form the art of English garden making.
The contributions of men and women of genius and lesser known individuals are analysed and celebrated. The author’s final conclusion is that an overwhelming love of flowering plants has always been the inspiration for English gardeners, and probably always will be.

Review: The English are known throughout the horticultural world as being passionate about their gardens. English gardens are emulated across the globe and are regarded as being the ideal “garden”. Indeed even our wet summers are envied for its ability to bring out the best in our gardens – lush, luxuriant, flowering growth. But from where does this peculiarly English love affair originate? Acclaimed historical garden restorer and writer, Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, looks back over 1000 years, tracing the gardens development from Medieval ‘hortus conclusus’, enclosed gardens, through to embracing the surrounding countryside in Repton and Brown’s rolling landscapes of the 1800s, back to today’s desire for ‘hortus conclusus’ once again. Written intelligently and knowledgeably, accompanied by a selection of poetry, diary extracts and historical memoirs, it is a fascinating illustrated history of our horticultural heritage. – Lucy Watson

A new perspective on the history, style and influence of the English garden – showing how each period was influenced by a love or hate relationship with nature, alternatively taming or manipulating it, romanticising and celebrating it.

Jane Margaret Fearnley-Whittingstall (née Lascelles)(born 1939 in Kensington, London) is a writer and garden designer with a diploma in landscape architecture. She won two gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show. Daughter of Colonel John Hawdon Lascelles OBE of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and Janet Hamilton Campbell Kidston, Fearnley-Whittingstall and her husband, Robert Fearnley-Whittingstall, of a landed gentry family formerly of Watford and Hawkswick, Hertfordshire, have two children: Sophy and Hugh, the celebrity chef. They have six grandchildren.

Fearnley-Whittingstall gained a Diploma in Landscape Architecture from Gloucestershire College of Art and Design in 1980 and has designed numerous gardens in the UK and abroad. From 2005 to 2007 she wrote a weekly column about family life, in The Times. She has also written for The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Oldie, Woman’s Weekly, The Garden, The English Garden and Gardens Illustrated.