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The photograph of Brighton beach, below, reminds me of Fernando Gonzalez’s Pure Land Garden:

Flint meeting chalk on a beach��(in Sussex)��is a symbol of impermanence �� anicca��

Fernando ��is ��exploring the future role of Buddhism in garden design. The videos, below, have a comment on his 2015 Pure Land Garden and a 2013 interview with the designer.

Fernando wrote��of the Pure Land Garden that: A curvilinear white shimmering structure captures the organic shapes of the landscapes and is inspired by nature’s natural rhythms. A planting colour palette influenced by the principal colours used in Buddhist art and ritual, warm yellows, oranges, blues and reds, emerge through a matrix of tussocky grasses. Three multi-stemmed Koelreuteria paniculata , golden rain trees, complete the well-being garden, exploring the potential of harmoniously combining the artificial and natural in a new artistic.



This video shows two��contemporary Buddhist-inspired garden designs, at the 2013 Chelsea Flower Show: The Sound of Silence Garden Fernando Gonzalez (interviewed by Tom Turner) and the Mindfulness garden by Martin Cook (a stone-carver and calligrapher).

2016 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Britain’s most famous landscape architect and garden designer. was baptised on 30 August 1716 and when he died at the age of 67, on 6th February 1783, his reputation was sky high. By 1800 his reputation was mud-low. In 2016 Brown’s reputation is, once again, sky high.

In 1987, I had a go at explaining why this happened and, rightly or wrongly, have not changed my mind. You can read�� or listen to an��illustrated version on the above video. The short summary is that Brown’s popularity crashed because a change in the predominant understanding of ‘nature��. Even Gertrude Jeykll dissed Brown. His reputation only recovered when Marie-Luise Gothein, Christopher Hussey, Nicholas Pevsner and others appreciated that Brown worked in a classical style. He was not confused��about the appearance of ‘wild nature�� or how it should be ‘imitated��.

Oxford Colleges have plumped for the National Trust Style of Planting design (right) and are lucky to have excellent gardeners (left)

Tim Richardson ��(Author), Andrew Lawson (Photographer) Oxford College Gardens �� 2015��ISBN-13: 978-0711232181

Tim Richardson’s text is excellent. ��Andrew Lawson’s photographs are excellent. Tim is the best informed and most readable of contemporary British garden historians. Andrew is a technically skilled photographer with artistic talent. Working together, they have given us a biography and portrait of Oxford’s colleges and their gardens.

Oxford College gardeners have done a great job too, century after century, and Tim does them justice. But from my standpoint they are too fashion conscious and too determined to make the college gardens look as though they belonged to the National Trust. Modern additions would be welcome but more historical traditions could have been conserved.

Plans of All Souls College Gardens. The new plan (left) has no information on planting design. But the 1598 plan (right) is rich in information.

I have three criticisms of the book. First, there is a��lack of integration between the text and the illustrations. ��Too many of the photographs were taken ‘in the garden�� rather than ‘of the garden��. They therefore fail to illustrate interesting points which the author has made.

A second criticism concerns the specially drawn plans. Plans are very welcome and I wish garden writers made more use of them. But this set of plans does not show the planting which everyone agrees to be a key feature of gardens �� and many see as their defining feature. No trees, no shrubs, no hedges, no herbaceous plants. The plans only show buildings, water, paving and a green tone which might��be��grass. Future historians could have been very grateful for information about the planting design.

A third criticism is the lack of historical illustrations. There are a few �� but there are far too few. Oxford is particularly rich in drawings, paintings, engravings and photographs. It would be great to see more of them. For example: p.35 refers to David Loggan’s engraving of Balliol. It is freely available on the web but it is not in the book; p.51 refers to Loggans drawing of Christ Church showing parterres.

One of its most enjoyable aspects is the balance between comment on the colleges and on their gardens. I knew little of the separate histories of the colleges and found that, as well as being of great interest, they helped me make sense of the gardens. Perhaps the title should have been Oxford Colleges and their gardens. A good map shows the locations of the colleges but there are no details of opening times.

Let me conclude by saying again: I really enjoyed reading the text and looking at the pictures.

Hard to know what I would write if the Sunday Express asked me to do a few hundred words on garden design but I can put some helpful advice in one sentence: ‘��. The concept of ‘style�� on which his article rests is of use in understanding garden history and restoring historic gardens but it often leads amateur designers astray. Or maybe the problem is more basic: to do a design you have to be a designer. Many owner-designers have proved that a design training is not essential �� and some professional designers have proved that it is not sufficient. But, somewhat tautologically, you do have to be a good designer to produce a good design �� and a fixation on styles or ‘stylish gardens�� is unhelpful.

A Tivoli Companion Tim Cawkwell

Tim Cawkwell’s is, scholarly, enjoyable and puzzling in equal measure. The puzzle, for a reviewer, is the intended audience. I guess I know more about Tivoli than most general readers but a good deal less than those with specialist knowledge of Italian garden history. So perhaps the guide was written for people like me. But, are there many other people like me with an in-between knowledge of Tivoli?

The title A Tivoli Companion is well-chosen, reminding one of Georgina Masson’s Companion Guide to Rome. The Introduction is explicit that ‘this is not a guidebook that will tell you where to stay and what to eat�� but also states that ‘Tivoli is a rich enough place to have its own guidebook��. So is it a ‘guidebook��? Not really. The contents page identifies the main section of the text as an ‘Essay�� and this is the truth of the matter. It is akin to an extended magazine article. About half the text is about Tivoli’s three famous gardens: , the and the , with their history and character dealt with rather glancingly. The author’s photographs tell us more but not as much as they could have done with more consistent and informative captioning. The book has only one plan. Hand-drawn and with almost unreadable labelling. But the information is useful and interesting: ‘Tivoli and R. Ariene in 17th century showing channel dug under the town to the NE corner of Villa d’Este��.

Just possibly, the puzzling aspect of the Companion is explained by the information about the author on p.78. Most of his writing has been about cinema. His literary approach is filmic. I am pretty confident that Calkwell’s Companion is, to date, the most extensive discussion of Tivoli’s graffiti in the English language,

A Tivoli Companion Tim Cawkwell CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (2015)

The Gardens of Fletcher Steele by Priscilla Elliott

I opened this short book with some puzzlement, wondering why the author wrote it when a longer book had been published in 1989 and revised in 2003 (Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect: An Account of the Gardenmaker’s Life, 1885-1971 Robin S. Karson). Elliott must surely have read Karson’s book but does not list it in her bibliography.

The explanation of Elliott’s approach lies in her title: her focuses is on the gardens Steele designed. They are explained with quotations from his letters and grainy old sepia photographs from the Library of Congress Archive.

’s career has parallels with that of (1861-1933). He was born 28 years after Mawson and the comparison is interesting. Both were strongly influenced by and by its transformation into another Italian revival. In terms of design quality, the work of both men was less-inspired than the work of Jekyll and Lutyens. But in one respect Steel’s work is more interesting and important than Mawsons. Steele was interested in the modern world and keen to draw upon them. Mawson ridiculed the Art Nouveau style. Steele was attracted by the currents of Art Deco and Art Nouveau and interested in Abstract Art. This helped him achieve something Mawson never managed: a design classic �� at Naumkeag �� which Elliott sensibly illustrates on the cover of her book.

Though she lists and documents Steele’s gardens, Elliot is disappointingly quiet on stylistic issues and on Steele’s place in the histories of garden design and landscape architecture.

The Gardens of Fletcher Steele, American Landscape Architect by Piscilla Elliott (2014) is published by Guysborough Press 72 Cottage Street Melrose MA 02176

Good writing and good photography are real��assets for garden books. Great Gardens of London was produced by a skilled investigative journalist working with two expert photographers. Victoria Summerley explains that the book is ‘aimed at residents and visitors alike��. Yes. But it is not particularly aimed at garden visitors. Or should I say ‘it is not aimea at all garden visitors��. The book’s first garden is that of the Prime Minister’s official London residence: 10 Downing Street. Doubtless it has been seen by many important visitors to London but I doubt if many travellers on omnibuses from Clapham are to be counted among their number.

Frances Lincoln (2015) ISBN-10: 0711236119, ISBN-13: 978-0711236110

The book has a map and appendix with details of which gardens can be visited: 13 of the gardens are never open and 17 are open in various degrees. I did not know that Downing Street lets in a few visitors by ballot.��Another appendix suggests more gardens to visit.��

America is said to have less of a class system but Winfield House, second in the book and the American ambassador’s London residence, is not part of the tourist circuit. No matter: the book is a great opportunity to see and read about these important gardens.

I don’t know whether to be pleased or sorry that PM Gordon Brown’s wife (Sarah) introduced raised vegetable beds to Downing Street. Good to think��of the happy couple doing something useful with their time but I worry about how the beds fit into the garden aesthetically and about why they wanted the beds to be raised. Did they use railway sleepers? Raised beds��are��fashionable, and possibly a Tory idea, but my experience is that unless your��ground is badly drained or polluted, or you want to avoid carrot fly, vegetables do better in��unraised beds and need less watering. I’d like to know whether Downing Street harvests rainwater for its garden �� or does it make unsustainable use of tap water? I was interested to read��that Margaret Thatcher commissioned the Downing Street rose beds and that they contain a rose named after her. Great that it survived the dark age of Blair and Brown, much as the nearby statue of Charles I survived the Civil War. Do they use strips of iron to protect the adjoining lawn?

Sustainable gardening is high on the agenda for Winfield House. Even memos are composted. Just think how much Wikileaks trouble would have been avoided if the US had stuck to composting. Obama liked Winfield garden so much that he joked about wishing he had been Ambassador to London instead of President.

The��gardens and parks in the book which are accessible to the public are��well worth visiting, though most are flattered by the excellence of the photography. is an interesting place but, despite continued efforts by English Heritage, I find the quality of the gardens disappointing. Summerly sees Eltham as the product of ‘two dynasties��: the Tudors and the Courtaulds. But one does not sense their tastes in the design. It looks like a municipal park. English Heritage say the aim is restore��Eltham��to the style of the 1930s and they have used archive material to this end. Perhaps the problem is that the Art Deco style, which worked well for rebuilding Eltham Palace, was never resolved in English gardens. , as he showed at , could have done a much better job.

The garden of Horace Walpole’s was ‘pretty dreadful�� before the Strawberry Hill Trust began a £9m restoration of the house and garden in 2009. Generally, I think individuals and trusts do a better job of this kind of work than bodies, like English Heritage, with national responsibilities. The Strawberry Hill Trustees have the wisdom to run a volunteer programme. Why don’t all publicly owned green spaces do this?

The next chapter is on , where much garden history research and restoration has been carried out. I am sorry that the book does not use historical drawings or plans but can understand that they might be thought unsuitable for a non-specialist readership.

Moving on, I was very pleased to find a chapter on the Floating Gardens in Bermondsey. The wretched, unimaginative, blinkered bureaucrats of Southwark Council have been trying to get them removed for years. Their inclusion may help those who have long campaigned for their recognition and protection.

The book’s 30 gardens are categorised into five��chapters. Some are unconvincing as groups. Chapter 4, on roof gardens, is a good group and a pleasure to discover. My dream is that This chapter shows what is possible. Most roof gardens are, understandably, not open to the public. But they are great places and, unlike most of the design styles represented in the book, they look contemporary. Jane Brown wrote of ‘the gardens of a golden afternoon��. Much though I like them, that afternoon continues to linger on beyond its natural lifespan. What London needs is a wealth of roof gardens. Unlike many capital cities, including Washington, Delhi, Beijing, Tokyo and Moscow, London has a climate which is very well suited to��the enjoyment of roofs �� providing they are well planned and well designed. I hope the second edition of Victoria Summerley’s Great Gardens of London will include the . And if space can be found, I’d like to have more discussion of .

Tom Turner

Chipping Campden is a ‘garden town�� in the Cotswolds

Chipping Campden is a small market town in the Cotswolds, described as ‘the most beautiful village street now left on the island�� (G.M. Trevelyan English social history, 1944). The Cotswolds is an area of gently rolling hills famous for its sleepy villages, fine gardens and concentrated ‘Englishness��.��The June tour from starts with 3 days visiting its��private gardens. They are open (for charity) only for a��week in June. After that the guests move to another Cotswold town (Barnsley, Bibury or Cirencester) for visits to other gardens, including:

��was designed and created by an American, Major Lawrence Johnston and examplifies the with well-designed����garden rooms and linking spaces.

was designed��by its��owner, Emma Keswick and her taste shines through the the design.

��garden was designed by a well-known designer at the Chelsea Flower Show, Jinny Blom

��Garden was owned and designed by Rosemary Verey

��is the country home of��HRH Prince of Wales. He has had a remarkable success as owner, patron, designer and part-time gardener.

Asthall Manor garden is , who also help Prince Charles with the design of Highgrove.

LAA Landscape Architects website

This blog has��covered both designed gardens and landscape architecture��for 7 years but have decided:

to use��this��blog for��garden design, garden history and garden tourism
to use the ��for commentary on landscape architecture, urban design and planning �� from me and, I hope, from others

I have not changed my mind about the relationship between the two subjects (please see��) but not everyone shares my interest in both areas of work.

England is rightly famed as ‘the garden country�� and it would be a pity, surely, to visit England without seeing some of its gardens. So we recommend a r which includes visits to Chelsea, Sissinghurst Castle Garden, the RHS Wisley Garden and Tatton Park.

Chelsea Flower Show��garden tour

Chelsea Flower Show Garden Tour

The three main reasons for visiting the :

to see the show of flowers in the great tent
to see the show gardens which surround the great tent
garden-related shopping

The show is international. Flowers, products and garden designers come from around the world. So do the visitors. The demand for tickets is high and unless you buy a ticket long in advance of the show, or try your luck with ticket touts, there is little chance of getting in.

Sissinghurst Castle Garden Tour

Sissinghurst Garden Tour

is, quite simply, the most famous garden in England. This is partly on account of its high design quality and partly because of the fame of its creators: and Harold Nicholson.

Wisley RHS Garden Tour

RHS Wisley Garden Tour

is the home garden Royal Horticultural Society. It has a fantastic collection of flowering plants in every category: herbaceous plants, Alpine plants, flowering shrubs, trees �� everything.

Tatton Park Garden Tour

Tatton Park Garden Tour

is set in a vast park designed by . The garden has��a Red Book by and was largely designed by ��(who also designed the in London) and was planned to give views of the Brown lake and deer park.