We Made a Garden

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We knocked out the bricked-up window and dug out clay to a further depth of twelve inches, passing it out through the window to a waiting skip.

And I never stopped saying the most scathing things about gardeners, what fools they were always to be working and never enjoying their gardens, and what was the good of having a lovely garden if you never had time to sit in it and enjoy it? Margery Fish is entertaining and amusing but in this day and age, there is no place for the constant mentioning of Walter, the absolute domineering, tyrannical gobshite of a husband that not only disallowed Margery any autonomy in the garden, but actively delighted in wrecking her plans by pulling up plants, throwing soil from his projects on her work and generally berating her for every idea mentioned! Very enjoyable read of an English couple creating a garden in a forsaken plot of land, in 1940s England. We Made a Garden is the story of how Margery Fish, the leading gardener of the 1960s, and her husband Walter transformed an acre of wilderness into a stunning cottage garden, still open to the public at East Lambrook Manor, Somerset, England. They had married in 1933 after working together at the Daily Mail and while Walter had had gardens of his own in his previous homes, this was the first one Margery had ever been involved with.

Walter died in 1947 and while Margery remembers him fondly throughout the book and his influence helped make her the gardener she became, she also obviously enjoyed the freedom she had after his death to shape the garden according only to her own ideas. Barnsley, with its lively pink flowers gave us several gorgeous years of flowers from spring through November, but finally gave up.

Still, I feel for Walter, wanting to have his own preferences and experiences considered – after all, it was his garden too. A quirky classic, this book details her creation of a landmark cottage garden, as well as her battles with her husband in the process, who preferred the standard suburban approach. In winter, heating of sorts, came from unwilling-to-give-up-their-warmth night-storage heaters, open fires and a marvellous 1950s Rayburn solid fuel range.As another reviewer noted, in the words of LP Hartley, "the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," and perhaps it is those glimpses into the domestic life of a far off land that compelled me to keep going: a lady in her long dinner dress and satin slippers perched precariously, balanced with a watering can to water the tops of her walls where trails of greenery fall. I whacked at the hole until we could squeeze through and venture down the steps into a large brick-floored cellar – with, sure enough, a bricked-up window.