The Lost Garden

Gwen Davis has left her job with the Royal Horticultural Society for the Devon countryside, where she will lead a group of young women in planting vegetables to contribute to the war effort. Stationed on an estate, the rural landscape is a welcome respite from London’s streets and the constant fear of air raids. A Canadian regiment is also billeted there, in training while awaiting deployment.

Gwen has led a solitary life and finds it difficult to form relationships. She builds an alliance with Raley, the Commanding Officer; they organize dances for their younger charges and provide moral support for one another. But Gwen is an unreliable narrator, unwilling to admit to the reader the deeper feelings obviously stirring within. When show more she discovers a hidden garden left unattended since the first world war, Gwen finds new purpose in restoring the plots and trying to learn more about the gardeners who created them.

Helen Humphreys gives readers so much more than just Gwen’s story. This book is layered with poetry and literature, gardening, love, and loss. It’s a book to be read slowly and savored. show less

During WWII, London-born horticulturist Gwen Davis volunteers with the Women's Land Army to grow food for the nation on a rundown country estate in Devon. Between organizing the other female volunteers and getting to know the officers from a Canadian regiment stationed there, Gwen discovers a secret garden that mirrors her life and those around her. Restoring the garden, Gwen finds friendship, love and loss, as well as herself.

This story worked for me on so many levels. The writing was lovely, poetic and lush, much like the garden she described. I could truly smell the freshly dug soil, the dew on the grass, the roses. The story was heartbreaking and it's truth timeless. Vivid, sometimes funny, very moving and poignant, it's one of my show more favourites this year. show less

The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys is a deceptively simple story, but one of many layers which makes it difficult to describe. Set during World War II, this is less a story of war and more of a reflection on the emotions of war - love, longing and loss. The author obviously is a gardener and uses the plants as a metaphor for these very emotions.

The main character, Gwen Davis was a researcher at the Royal Horticultural Society in London but came to the country to oversee a group of Land Girls and to get away from the constant bombing and destruction of the city that she loved. When she arrives however, she realizes that she is a fish out of water with no ability to inspire those she is intended to lead. Other standout characters are show more Jane, who became a Land Girl with the hope that it would help her cope with the fact that her fiancé is missing in action and Captain Raley, who is a Canadian officer in charge of the soldiers billeted nearby. He is mourning the loss of a friend and pondering his own mortality as the days of combat approach.

This book packs an emotional punch that one would not expect from such a slender volume. This beautifully written story is lyrical and visual, yet there are moments of humor and a sense of discovery that makes the book very accessible. I highly recommend The Lost Garden. show less

The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys is a WWII novel set in the peaceful English countryside. It centers around 35 year old Gwen Davis, a researcher at the Royal Horticultural Society who has volunteered to take charge of turning a manor's rundown gardens, with the help of volunteer "Land Girls", into a source of potatoes for the soldiers. She has found the bombing destruction of her beloved London unbearable, and her own life barren of companionship. Her most treasured possession is a huge two volume encyclopedia of roses, the weight of which she sometimes lays under and imagines is a lover. "The point, dear Davis, is that sometimes what you want is nothing more than to put your name beside someone else's, someone whom you love. Stretch show more your name out alongside theirs as though it was you, lying next to them.”

She sees herself as plain and socially inept; at the manor others see her differently, and she becomes close to Jane, a young volunteer whose husband has gone missing in the war. Gwen has arrived late, and has to struggle initially in asserting her authority. There are soldiers billeted at the manor, too, awaiting orders, and Captain Raley, a fancier of poetry, helps her find her footing. The gardens are in severe disrepair, but she knows how to mend them. She finds three hidden gardens that further inspire her. “What I've always found interesting in gardens is looking at what people choose to plant there. What they put in. What they leave out. One small choice and then another, and soon there is a mood, an atmosphere, a series of limitations, a world.” The three gardens have been planted, she surmises, to represent longing, loss, and faith. She labors in secret to understand and restore them. We find ourselves gradually caught up in the intertwined tendrils of her, Jane's, and Captain Raley's lives, all of them dependent, in one way or another, on the war being prosecuted beyond the garden walls.

Another quietly brilliant book by this author. Four and a quarter stars. show less

Since I first discovered her wonderful little collection of stories The Frozen Thames, Helen Humphreys has become one of my favorite writers, and this novel does not disappoint. Like the beautiful Coventry, The Lost Garden is set in World War II England and explores the relationships among those trying to survive and to do their part for the war effort. Horticulturist Gwen Davis, a bit of a loner, leaves London after the death of her estranged mother, arriving in Devon to lead a group of Land Girls in planting potatoes. Gwen finds herself challenged by her leadership role, the neglected grounds of the estate, and the presence of a unit of Canadian soldiers preparing to ship out. She takes refuge in a mysterious hidden garden that show more someone has sectioned into a Garden of Longing, a Garden of Loss, and a Garden of Faith--aspects that represent Gwen's emotional journey during her months at Mosel.

Humphreys's quiet, spare, almost poetic style is perfectly suited to her gentle exploration of her characters' hearts and minds. Although The Lost Garden doesn't quite match up to the two novels mentioned above, it is nevertheless a lovely work, well worth a reader's time. show less

It is 1941 and London is being bombed daily. Gwen leaves her job at the horticulture center and takes the position of training young land girls at an estate on the Devon coast. There job is to grow food for the home front.

In the estate house a group of soldiers are stationed, waiting to be posted. All have left things or people behind, many have acquaintances or loved ones who have already been killed, or presumed missing. For many of the girls this is the first time they have left home. Most are changed by the time they spend here. In restoring the gardens, Gwen finds a secret garden, a small abandoned place whose name is on a rock. Who planted this, a garden that doesn't even show up on the plans of the gardens?

Beautiful, beautiful show more writing, poetic at times, begging to be read again and again. A simple story at the beginning that gains depth as we get to know some the characters. What the war has cost these people, the understanding that they can't go back to prewar lives, that things will never again be the same. A touching story that with a melancholy tone, so many flowers described of which I had never known.

Virgins Woolf and her To the Lighthouse play an important part in this novel. The cover is simply stunning, in fact I found this to be a gorgeous package all around. Just love the way this author writes, so glad I have a few more of her books to read. show less

I am not much of a gardener myself but when I was small, I knew the names of most of the common flowers where we lived, I am intrigued by the language of flowers, and I have always thrilled to beautiful gardens. The idea of a hidden or lost garden appeals to me more than you can know and I'm sure the title and cover of this book drew me in immediately. I have to say that as a conditional because I have had it sitting on my bookshelf unread for more than a decade. I can't explain why it sat for so long but getting the push to finally read it was wonderful, especially as it is a gorgeously written story. In fact, Helen Humphreys' latest novel, The Evening Chorus was one of my favorite reads of last year. The Lost Garden has the same show more seductive, mesmeric feel to it that the newer novel does and I loved immersing myself in the lush and gorgeous language of this beautiful novel.

Gwen Davis has worked for years at the Royal Horticulture Society in London when she volunteers for the Women's Land Army as a way to escape the Blitz. Gwen is generally quiet, almost invisible, ill at ease with others, and convinced of her plainness and undesirability so being in charge of an outfit of young women, especially young women determined to make the most of life in the midst of wartime, is a stretch for her. When Gwen arrives at the country estate where she is to be in charge, she finds that a Canadian regiment is also on the grounds as they await orders and her Land Girls have made themselves at home with the men. Initially Gwen wants no fraternizing, after all; the Land Girls are there to plant potatoes and do their part producing food for the war effort, but she quickly realizes that a lighter hand will return better results. It doesn't hurt that she is intrigued by Raley, the Canadian Commander. With the help of Jane, whose fiance is missing in the war, Gwen starts to soften, learning not only how to lead but also how to connect personally. When Gwen finds a lost garden, one not on any map of the estate and seemingly unknown to the others there, she sets about bringing it back to life, trying to understand the motivation behind building it. Divided into three distinct parts labeled loss, longing, and faith, Gwen tends to the hidden garden as she herself traverses these three states of experience and feeling alongside the corresponding plants blooming and fading.

Humphreys is a master at beautiful language and dreamy imagery and she has drawn a lovely, introspective novel about love and memory and connection. Like the growing season of the gardens, the time the characters have together is fleeting and there is a melancholic and elegiac feel to the novel. Watching Gwen bloom, watching her open her heart to others, to desire, to love is exquisitely done. She is certainly the central character of the novel, the other characters acting as accents. And it is Gwen's personal growth that is carefully detailed in quiet ways, like her giving each of the Land Girls the nickname of a potato variety, starting by calling them exclusively by these nicknames, but slowly coming to use the young women's real names as the book comes to its quiet close. Humphreys writes stunningly of nature and the poetry to be found in plants, weaving nature into this very human story of a desire for connection and love, tying Gwen and the gardens together wonderfully. This is a graceful and stunning novel, reaffirming for me that I should pull the rest of Humphreys's novels off my shelf sooner rather than later so I can submerge myself again in the beauty and magnificence that is her writing. show less