A Little History of British Gardening [Hardcover]

Jenny Uglow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2004

Did the Romans have rakes? Did the monks get muddy? This lively history of gardening in Britain takes us on a tour from the thorn hedges around prehistoric settlements to the rage for decking and ornamental grasses today. It tracks down the ordinary folk who worked the earth-the apprentice boys and weeding women, the florists and nursery gardeners-as well as aristocrats, grand designers, and famous plant hunters. Colored by Jenny Uglow's own love for plants and brought to life by many vivid illustrations, it not only deals with flowery-meads, grottoes and vistas, landscapes and ha-has, parks and allotments, but also tells you, for example, how the Tudors made their curious knots, how housewives used herbs to stop freckles, and how the suburbs dug for victory in World War II. This is a book to put in your pocket when planning your ideal green space-and to read in your deck chair with a glass of cold wine, when deadheading is simply too much.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Uglow, who won the PEN International Prize for History for Lunar Men, turns her attention from English inventors and scholars to English gardens. Her aim is modest, she writes, "a quest to uncover the gardens, plots and people of Britain in the past," and with this, she wonderfully captures the gardening of both the poor and the elite. She cleverly arranges her history into four parts that follow the stages of a growing plant: "Seed," "Leaf," "Flower," "Fruit." It was the Romans, she explains, who, seeing little outside of wheat and cattle farms, "created our first plant-filled spaces intended purely for enjoyment." In the second part, she brings to light the gardening style and culture of the Jacobeans ("by now gardening was so entwined with courtly culture"); in "Flower," she appropriately discusses Victoriana; and in the final part, she brings gardening up to the 20th century. Highlighting this beautifully written history are lovely reproductions of historic etchings, calendars, books, stained glass and drawings of garden plans in both b&w and color.
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From The New Yorker

Uglow's brisk history starts with Roman attempts to adapt to the English climate (a summer divan found in one ruin is "a mark of real optimism") and whisks us through a panorama of monastery herb gardens, medieval walled gardens, Tudor knots, and Restoration parterres. She's alert to the way that fashion gradually edged out mere utility, as she explains the landscaping craze of the eighteenth century, the flower-bed craze of the Victorians, and the current vogue for vegetables grown for decorative effect. Leavening the welter of fact with personal asides, she relishes the dottier manifestations of horticultural single-mindedness, like Francis Carew's method of providing Elizabeth I with out-of-season cherries (a damp canvas cover to keep the tree cool in summer), and John Evelyn's pleasingly unworkable plan to counter seventeenth-century London pollution by surrounding the capital with an enormous border of flowers.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press; 1st edition (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865477027
• ISBN-13: 978-0865477025
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #770,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a delightful book, January 31, 2005

By 

Margaret Johnston (Seabeck, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Little History of British Gardening (Hardcover)

_A Little History of British Gardening_ is a delightful book. Jenny Uglow traces the history of British gardening from Roman times to the modern day, taking in gardens large and small and gardeners rich and poor along the way. The book is elegantly written, well researched, and beautifully illustrated with a plethora of black-and-white illustrations accompanying the text as well as several sections of color plates. Uglow supplies lots of colorful examples and anecdotes which keep the narrative engaging, and her love of gardening comes through clearly. This is marvelous reading for anyone interested in the history of gardening or in British gardens.