Product Description

Lady Salisbury has been a gardener since, as a child in the 1930s, she cultivated tiny patches of her parents' gardens in Ireland and the West of England. Later, as chatelaine first of Cranborne Manor and then of Hatfield House, she revived two of the great historic gardens of England. Then there the gardens that, as a professional garden designer, she has created for others, notably for the Prince of Wales at Highgrove and for the Museum of Garden History and Cosby Hall in London ('As a gardener who has lived the greater part of her life in Tudor and Stuart houses, to be asked to design a garden for an Elizabethan palace was an enjoyable challenge'). Renowned for her depth of scholarship and her design skill, she has also led the way in as a pioneer of organic gardening ('when I began, in 1948, I was written off as a complete crank').

Now in her eighties, she not only continues to tend her garden in Provence, she is also making a roof garden ('the first I've ever done') for her house in Chelsea, and designing gardens for clients in England, Ireland, Italy and the United States. This book encapsulates her gardening experience.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #207513 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
The book looks as beautiful as the gardens that the Marchioness makes. (Spectator )

A startlingly impressive oeuvre. (House & Garden )

An endearing memoir of someone whose entire life has been consumed by the furore hortensis… Derry Moore has complemented the text with ravishing atmospheric photographic coverage. (Country Life )

About the Author
Lady Salisbury has been a gardener since, as a child in the 1930s, she cultivated tiny patches of her parents' gardens in Ireland and the West of England. Later, as chatelaine first of Cranborne Manor and then of Hatfield House, she revived two of the great historic gardens of England. And then there are the gardens that, as a professional garden designer, she has created for others, notably for the Prince of Wales at Highgrove and for the Museum of Garden History and Cosby Hall in London. Renowned for her depth of scholarship and her design skill, she has also led the way as a pioneer of organic gardening ('when I began, in 1948, I was written off as a complete crank').

From 1971 until 2004 she lived and worked at Hatfield House, where she oversaw the restoration of the garden. Now in her eighties, she not only continues to tend her garden in Provence, she is also making a roof garden ('the first I've ever done') for her house in Chelsea, and designing gardens for clients in England, Ireland, Italy and the United States.

Derry Moore is known internationally as a photographer of gardens, houses and people. His work regularly appears in magazines including Country Life, Vogue, World of Interiors and Architectural Digest.

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Customer Reviews

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE GARDENS, NATURE, AND ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL


Leafing the pages of this beautifully wrought gardener's diary is very much like drawing open curtains on a summer morning and finding your room filled with sunlight. The photographs by Derry Moore are incredibly beautiful from Jeff Koons' Puppy to the protective shadows and dappled greens of a terrace border on a cloudless afternoon. There are some 150 color photos in the 224 pages, and each is a feast for the eyes.

Lady Salisbury, we learn, has always been drawn to gardens. As a youngster she tended to small areas in her parents' gardens. From this initial interest grew an abiding love and enormous responsibility as she later became chatelaine of England's Cranborne Manor and Hatfield House, where she brought these great groundss to renewed life.

In a description of her childhood gardens she writes, "From my earliest consciousness, I have noticed plants..." She was, she says, awakened by her mother's roses and the instructions she received as to how to cut a rose for a vase and how to prune roses to encourage reflowering. Little did she dream then that she would become a professional garden designer with commissions from throughout the world and count among her clients the Prince of Wales and the New York Botanical Garden.

Lady Salisbury has spent her life doing what she loved, and to this writing actively continues although she is in her 80s. She is the woman the New York Times called "The Green Goddess of English Gardens," while others refer to her as the "greatest gardener of the twentieth century."

In photographs and words A Gardener's Life is her biography, and a joyous one it is. This volume serves not only as a chronicle of her work but as a guide for us, sure to be relished by those who love gardens, nature, and all things beautiful.

- Gail Cooke

A Gardener's Life
Well......what a lady and what an inspirational gardener.
I found this book enchanting and delightful. The Marchioness has been passionate about every garden in which she was involved, from Highgrove to her own roof garden in London and would not take no for an answer. Wonderful.