Marg’s Pick (Guest Reviewer)
July 2022
The Last Garden in England
Julia Kelly
Gallery Books, January 2021
When my first plant and seed catalog arrived this spring, I had a pleasant flashback to one of the books I’d read while on vacation in November, The Last Garden in England. It’s a delightful, historical fiction novel about gardens, regal estates, and generations of interesting gardeners all beautifully woven together.
As gardeners we are all aware of the legendary gardens of England, but this author takes us on a journey in the gardens of Highbury House over the decades from early 1900s to present-day 2020s. Events of the times, like seasons of a year, all influence and drive changes in the gardens.
But the author is well aware of gardens being more than plants (and weeds). She builds her stories around those who create and tend gardens….the Gardeners!! The blending and mixing is unique. Chapter one, page one starts in February 2021 and we meet Emma, an experienced professional hired to do a garden restoration project at Highbury House. This project would be delightfully different and a respite from the contemporary garden design work she was often called upon to do. Highbury was an historic garden of some consequence, that had not been tended for some time. The new estate owners wanted it brought back to the ‘full bloom of its 1907 creation’. Thus, enter Emma, renowned for her expertise in restoration of Edwardian gardens designed by one Venetia Smith, an early British garden planner.
Chapter two steps back to 1907 to meet Venetia as she arrives at Highbury to begin her creation of the gardens. Along with Venetia, we meet her patrons as she reveals some of her garden plans and the stories, as well as the gardens, begin to take shape.
As the areas are described, something strikes me. My American gardening catalogues and books refer to gardens as ‘beds’ or ‘plots’ but this British designer refers to the gardens as ‘rooms’. “What of the other rooms?” asked Mrs. Melcourt (the client). There will be the Tea Garden/Room; the Lover’s Garden/Room; the Children’s Garden/Room; the Bridal…; the Water…; the Poet’s…; the Sculpture…, etc. Each garden or room was to serve a specific purpose. Water garden for contemplation. Tea Room for small relaxing gatherings of friends. A Sculpture Garden/ Room to display and share the homeowners’ collection of sculptures. Plantings would complement the room’s purpose.
I looked at my own garden, i.e., my yard. Where would Venetia place my “Tea Room”? “A Poet’s Room”? Then the straight arrow question: What is the purpose of my garden? Having never given thought to this before, I wonder if the purpose of my garden is to see if I can get something, anything. to grow and maybe even blossom.
Venetia’s plan was to create gardens for her client that were “surprising, unexpected, impressive. Their gardens would tell stories that guests will be able to enjoy over and over again.”
As a disclaimer I am not an estate owner with acre after acre of land for gardens. I also confess to not having taken gardening design courses, so this idea of garden rooms may be new only to me.
Back to the book: The third time frame covered in The Last Garden is introduced in Chapter three where we meet “Beth,” the third gardener at Highbury House. It is now February 1944, and gardens in England have a very different purpose. The time frame is World War II. The entire globe is embroiled in conflict and the impacts resulting from it. While we are introduced to new characters, there are two constants: the garden and the estate of Highbury House.
As one thinks about reading a novel that has you jumping back and forth from 1907 to 2020 and then stepping into the 1940s, you might say to yourself, “That’s too confusing! I would get lost.” But this author is so skilled at drawing us in with the stories of her characters and the surrounding events, sprinkled with a bit of mystery, a couple of love stories, the changes occurring in the garden, you simply want to keep reading. These are passionate gardeners committed to revealing the stories each decade, each room, and each gardener has to tell.
Everything and everyone in this novel, regardless of their role or the time frame, is engaging. I felt as though I was alongside them, working in the garden, feeling their sorrows, their joys, asking their questions. They became my friends, my teachers.
For me, the take-away is that gardening is purposeful, reflective of the circumstances of life. Whether vast or miniscule, planting and growing is a response to the events of the time and a recording of who I am as gardener, the one who tends the ‘room’. Faced with either a world-wide epidemic or a war, or challenged by loss or love, each plant will be carefully chosen to help tell the story, give purpose, add beauty to life.
Enjoy my new friends as they reshape, restore and repurpose the old, grand and glorious gardens. But, don’t stop there. Look at your own garden, whether a potted plant on your balcony, patio, or deck, and recall the stories they tell, the memories they store, and the beauty they behold. As one of my favorite saying goes – “Life began in a garden.”