Garden Open Today

This is definitely a book of its time; the gossipy bitchiness (whatever did Somerset Maugham do to him?), the dinner parties where the creation of floral centrepieces appears to be a blood sport, and the constant name dropping. Well okay, name dropping is probably of any time.

There is definitely some worthwhile reading here too. Beverley Nichols was a prolific writer. Over the course of sixty-two years (1920 - 1982) he wrote more than sixty books, as well as weekly columns and newspaper articles.

Gardens were one of his specialties, and he wrote a number of books on the subject. Nichols reportedly felt that people didn’t think he was a “real” gardener, so this book is largely based on his gardening experience in an effort to show more convince doubters, interspersed with the humourous anecdotes for which he was known.

By the time this book was written, Nichols was living and gardening outside Richmond, in Surrey. He lived there with his partner Cyril Butcher, to whom he left his estate worth £534,880 in 2023 sterling.

Nichols’s gardening style is not for everyone. The book is illustrated by William McLaren, giving beautiful detail of a variety of plants, but also an indication of the author’s taste in hardscaping, which seemed to run to statuary and cherubs.

Even though he didn’t have much faith in the general public, hIs advice is sound. His rules:

a garden without water is not a garden at all
a garden’s size will appear doubled by cutting it in half
“the beauty of the square garden begins with the creation of curves and the beauty of a circular or irregular garden begins with the creation of squares and rectangles. It is a question of the harmonious blending of the two.”

A fun read for slow afternoons, and an author I would read again, if only his mostly out of print books weren’t so expensive. show less

Delightful book written by an avid gardener who was famous in Britian. He wrote lots of books about his gardens- this is one of the later ones and frequently makes references to past events or plants he used to grow or things he mentioned in other volumes, but never in a way that left me feeling in the dark. This book seems to have a focus on flowers, in particular ones that he considered rare or at least less-well-known. There were of course lots of plants mentioned I have never grown or even heard of, but also plenty that I'm familiar with, so I enjoyed learning new things all around. As even the familiar ones had interesting bits of info.

In particular, Nichols writes effusively about lilies, old style roses, clematis and various show more other climbers, dwarf sweet peas and nicotiana, flowers that are blue and many that are white, plants that have beautiful delicate scents and how they bring memories back so strongly, why he considers a water feature essential in a garden and what to do with it, irises, lamb's ears, rhododendrons, tulips and many many more. There are growing tips and little stories and many times I laughed aloud. I didn't really relate to the chapter on flower arrangements and the appendix at the back is a list of recommended nurseries and growers- all in Europe so not of much use to me. I did look some of them up out of curiosity and quite a few are still operating today. Would be nice to have an index but I took notes (it's been a long while since a gardening book prompted me to do that) on some things I want to remember.

from the Dogear Diary show less