Tim Smit

Until World War I, the estate gardens of Heligan were one of the glories of Cornwall. This book tells the story of the restoration of these gardens after 70 years of neglect, against the backdrop of local opposition and a lack of funding.

This book tells the fascinating story of how the Heligan gardens were rediscovered and restored. Tim Smit and his team are really quite inspirational - I am not a garden expert, I have a small sad garden I sometimes feel overwhelmed by - and so the scale of what these people achieved is extrordinary. I have to admit to getting a bit bored by some of the historical bits - which I had expected to like a lot. But the story of the gardens and the people who have brought them back to life is a really interesting one. You really get a feeling for what it must have been like to have been a part of this amazing team of people back in the 1990's.… (more)