We Made a Garden

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Margery Fish (née Townshend) (5 August 1892 – 24 March 1969) was an English gardener and gardening writer, who exercised a strong influence on the informal English cottage garden style of her period. [1] The garden she created, at East Lambrook Manor in Somerset, has Grade I listed status and remains open to the public.

Apart from writing eight books of her own, Margery Fish contributed to the Oxford Book of Garden Flowers (1963) and The Shell Gardens Book (1964), [11] and wrote a regular column in the 1950s and 1960s for Amateur Gardening and then Popular Gardening. She also made regular broadcasting appearances and gave lectures. A database compiled in the 1990s of every plant she mentioned in print contains 6500 items, including over 200 single snowdrop varieties. Michael Pollan, reviewing a belated 1996 first US edition of We Made a Garden, called Fish "the most congenial of garden writers, possessed of a modest and deceptively simple voice that manages to delicately layer memoir with horticultural how-to." [12] Legacy [ edit ] I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy in Liverpool. I have been there for nearly a week and had I known you were there, I would have seen you. It is difficult to find appointments just now, but yours is an exceptional case. You crossed the Atlantic when the submarines were at their worst and I have always given special treatment to those of my staff who took the risk. I will do my utmost. Meanwhile please come and see me tomorrow, Tuesday morning at 11.30 at No 1 Carlton Gardens. Its driving force was Margery who, having started from scratch, became one of the great gardeners of the 20th century. East Lambrook Manor has changed hands several times since Margery’s death in 1969, but the spirit of her garden remains there and in countless gardens around the country. You mustn't rely on your flowers to make your garden attractive. A good bone structure must come first - with an intelligent use of evergreen plants - so the garden is always clothed."We all have a lot to learn and in every new garden there is a chance of finding inspiration - new flowers, different arrangements or fresh treatment for old subjects. Even if it is a garden you know by heart there are twelve months in the year and every month means a different garden, and the discovery of things unexpected all the rest of the year.'

All the titles have been reprinted in various forms at various times. Several have been translated into German, Dutch, Italian and other languages. I know that he was right when he wrote that the four essentials of a good garden are perfect lawns, paths, hedges and walls,” Margery wrote later, about her husband’s opinions on elements she had once railed against. “We all know how restful and beautiful a purely formal garden of grass and shaped trees can be.” A visit to Germany in 1937 convinced Walter Fish that war was inevitable and that they should move to the countryside. They eventually bought East Lambrook Manor in the Somerset parish of Kingsbury Episcopi in November of that year. The house, which was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1959, [3] was built of Somerset hamstone in the 15th and 16th centuries and came with two acres of land. [1] Gardening [ edit ] Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any). This is a charming little book by Margery Fish, offering anecdotal history of the choosing and planting of a home garden in England. According the the introduction, Fish passed decades ago but her garden has recently been restored. He credits her with how we grow our gardens. I think he must be right.Sissinghurst is famed for its White Garden, but the concept is fairly widespread. Margery’s developed scheme of white-flowering and silver-leafed plants was modest but attractive. Margery Fish became an avid galanthophile or snowdrop enthusiast. Her book A Flower for Every Day includes an account of the giant snowdrop variety "S. Arnott", first exhibited at a Royal Horticultural Society exhibition in 1951 and acquired by her from a specialist company. There were said in 2008 still to be 60 different named varieties of Galanthus nivalis growing at East Lambrook. [9] Several snowdrop varieties discovered in the "ditch garden" at Lambrook since Margery Fish's death have been named and described. [10] Writing [ edit ] First published in 1956, We Made a Garden is the story of how Margery Fish, the leading gardener of the 1960s, and her husband Walter transformed an acre of wilderness into a stunning cottage garden, still open to the public at East Lambrook Manor, Somerset, England. This is now one of the most important books on gardening ever written. A beautiful and timeless book on creating a garden.