THE BEAUTIES OF A COTTAGE GARDEN
by Gertrude Jekyll
and
LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS GARDENS
by Vita Sackville-West
Publisher: Penguin Books (April 2009)
ISBN 978-0141190877 (Jekyll)
ISBN 978-0141190891 (Sackville-West)
Paperbacks £4.99 each
These two slim volumes, with beautiful evocative covers, are part of Penguin’s 20-book ‘English Journeys’ series.
Gertrude Jekyll’s The Beauties of a Cottage Garden is a selection from her Wood and Garden, first published in 1899. She writes with enthusiasm usually warmly, sometimes disparagingly on a wide range of gardening topics.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Gardens is taken from Sackville-West’s In Your Garden. In the form of diary extracts encompassing several years of the late 1940s/early 1950s, she eloquently portrays the art of good gardening.
I note that the observations and advice in both books are as interesting and pertinent today as when they were written.
Nick Smith