It’s been several months since I’ve held a book competition on The Anxious Gardener. How remiss of me. How selfish. And so to remedy that I’ll be giving away two shiny, non-thumbed books in the next couple of weeks. Here’s the first.
‘The English Country House Garden’ retails at twenty-five of your Earthling pounds and here’s what publisher, Frances Lincoln, has to say about it:
In ‘The English Country House Garden’ George Plumptre takes 25 country house gardens of England and binds them together to tell a compelling narrative, whilst giving each its own particular emphasis. He sets the scene with the ‘essentials’ of Hidcote, Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, examining why they have achieved their pre-eminent reputations. Next he takes five gardens to illustrate the sweep of history from Elizabethan Montacute to the 18th-century landscape at Rousham, High Victorian principles at Tyntesfield, the Arts & Crafts at Rodmarton, and Folly Farm where an Edwardian masterpiece has been revived for the 21st century. Then he illustrates the ‘country house garden ideal’ and how a select group of gardens evoke this. Each has an atmosphere, a sense of romance or long history, that is as significant and memorable as their planting and design. These lead on to ‘personal creations’ where the garden is an expression of a personality or family. These include Lullingstone Castle where Tom Hart Dyke has made his World Garden; Exbury where Lionel de Rothschild created an unrivalled rhododendron garden; and the contrast of Charleston where the Bells and the others from the Bloomsbury group gardened in bohemian tranquillity. Finally the author turns his attention to contemporary masterpieces: the work of Piet Oudolf, Tom Stuart-Smith, Dan Pearson, and the partnerships of Alan Gray and Graham Robeson showing how they have rejuvenated historic landscape settings.
Interesting, huh? Would you like to own a copy? Well, here’s all you need to do:
leave a comment below saying that you wish to enter
and
(if you don’t already) follow ‘The Anxious Gardener’ blog, follow me on Twitter or like The Anxious Gardener Facebook page. Hell, do all three – I shan’t mind. (The appropriate follow buttons are top right of this page).
The closing date is midnight on Thursday 11th September 2014.
I shall draw the winner out of my
and notify the winner by email and add the result to the bottom of this post. I’m afraid you must have a UK postal address to enter or the use of one. (The book can only be posted within the UK).
Good luck!
There will be another book draw in a couple of weeks.