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Some books - Western Morning News - Terry Underhill The other day I understood how the expression "I like to get my nose
into a good book" came about. A new book arrived for me to review, but no
sooner had I undone the packaging than my wife noticed the title ‘The
Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Perennials’. At that moment the phone rang and I
placed the book down. On returning, my wife was sitting with her head almost
lost between the pages, with her nose virtually on the page. Before I could ask
her what she was doing, she took a deep breath and lifting her head said,
"I love the smell of new books" and took another long sniff. The book, being approximately 26 x 34cm is a coffee table type of
publication, and flitting through the pages the quality of illustrations makes
it suitable for just enjoying the pictures. However, after less than 20 pages of
introduction and suggestions about cultivation and propagation, there is the
plant directory section of about 275 pages covering more than 1,500 plants.
Every plant is accompanied by a standardised list of information and a series of
symbols. The publishers, Salamander, and the author, Professor Marshall
Craigmyle, must know of my dislike of symbols, as they have included on the end
of the book-mark tape a plastic slip showing all the keys, which very sensibly
are red for negative attributes and green for positive attributes. Every so
often there is a full page illustration of the highest quality. Towards the end
of the book the appendices cover very useful alphabetical lists of perennials
for different situations, colour effects and uses. I was delighted to find a
long list of plants, many excellent garden plants, recommended as being rabbit
proof. As a little furry creature with long ears and bob tail, white underneath,
was seen in my garden the other morning, I may be referring to this list much
sooner than I thought. The book may cost £30 but it is of excellent value,
worthy of being a ‘special’ Christmas present to any gardener keen on
herbaceous perennials. Having mentioned what an excellent Christmas present the book on perennials
would make because of the wealth of information and excellent illustrations, I
began to look at some of the other books I have recently acquired. Autumn might have just blown away and the first icy blasts of Winter hit our
gardens, but the memories of the wonderful Autumn leaf colour, and masses of
brightly coloured and beautifully shaped fruits still remain. Now is an
excellent time to think about redesigning a corner of the garden and perhaps
replanting with fresh trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. An excellent aide
memoire would be Ethne Clarke’s ‘Autumn Garden’ published by David and
Charles, as the useful text is backed by masses of lovely photographs taken by
Jonathan Buckley, who specialises in garden and plant photography, supplying
many well known papers, magazines and book publishers. Sometimes just flicking through the pages of an illustrated book can fill one
with ideas. I liked the simplicity of a few stems of bright green spurge,
Euphorbia mellifera, against a background of the purple-leaved Vine, Vitis
vinifera ‘Purpurea’, with not a flower in sight, just a long season foliage
effect. Lungworts, Pulmonaria, have recently become very popular, especially
those plants with strongly marked foliage. Pulmonaria saccharata is such a
plant, and the combination of the clusters of small, whitish flowers in the
Autumn of Clematis x jouiniana being allowed to trail over the foliage appeals
to me, as does one of the less vigorous forms of Pampas Grass intermingling with
the mass of red hips of the shrubby Rosa glauca. Few of us can afford the luxury of visiting Japan and soaking up the
spiritual layout of their gardens, instead we have to visit copies or
westernised Japanese style gardens much nearer home. Another way is to enjoy
good photographs of Japanese gardens where the photographer has used his skill
and knowledge to convey the atmosphere within the artistic presentation of his
photographs. ‘The Art of Japanese Gardens’, published by David &
Charles, is about designing and making your own peaceful space, and is a
balanced mixture of photographs, diagrams and text. Some illustrations give an
overall picture of the garden, whereas the majority are of individual features,
illustrating their structure and use. There is a useful list of suitable plants,
although the accompanying pictures are not up to the standard of the rest of the
book. Sometimes a book can be an aide memoire or a reminder of a special place
visited. On the last leg of my drive from the Italian Alps to the ferry at
Cherbourg, I called in at Giverney, Monet’s garden. This garden, created by
Claude Monet and since restored as near his original design and planting as
possible, is visited by nearly half a million visitors between April and October
every year. It is now a popular destination for European garden tour operators.
The photographer Vivian Russel must have made many visits and shown the utmost
patience to produce the 200 or more photographs used in his book ‘Monet’s
Garden’, published by Frances Lincoln. There is too much to absorb in the
garden in one visit, although it is only a few acres and could be walked around
in five to ten minutes by a ‘moron’; likewise the book, packed with
pictures, history and information. There is no doubt that any visit to Giverney
would be dramatically enhanced by reading the book beforehand. Those gardeners
never likely to visit Giverney (shame!), can still earn a lot about colour and
design, while all painters should find inspiration for future work from its
pages. If you wish to organise your own garden tours across the
channel and perhaps further into Europe, then you could do no better than obtain
the various garden guide books published by Mitchell Beazley. Current titles,
each listing around 100 ‘special’ gardens are:- Gardens of France, Germany,
Italy and Spain & Portugal, each touring guide similarly structured to their
Gardens of Britain.
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