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. Margery took up the baton of cottage gardening that started outside humble country dwellings, was romanticised by the likes of William Robinson and reached the height of fashion at gardens such as Hidcote and Sissinghurst. Compared with these famous gardens, East Lambrook was modest in size, covering two acres.

Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any). East Lambrook Manor Gardens is the iconic and quintessentially English cottage garden created by the celebrated 20th-century plantswoman and gardening writer Margery Fish. It was here that she developed her own style of gardening, combining old-fashioned and contemporary plants in a relaxed and informal manner to create a garden of immense beauty and charm. For many years Fish indeed used very little gardening help. She squeezed her writing around working 18-hour days on developing and maintaining the garden, even doing dry stone walling and path-laying herself. Her silver garden caught the heat of the day, and her damp, shady garden used a stream that ran behind an old malthouse. The silver-leafed wormwood Artemisia absinthium 'Lambrook Silver' is still a popular variety.Little has changed at East Lambrook since Margery Fish died, in 1969. Photograph: Jason Ingram/The Guardian This book charmed me by the cover and hypnotized me with old-fashioned language, both British and Latin. Obsessed gardeners will love it. Others, possibly not.

Walter may have been seen off long ago, but one can’t help but feel Margery’s presence. Owner Mike receives the odd barbed comment from Fish fans who have spied a modern plant introduction, and he can be forgiven for occasionally railing against the mistress of cottage gardening. How many of us would choose to garden with our predecessor looking over our shoulder? But as Whitty points out, “Mrs Fish was always bringing in new plants. I’d find the donor’s name on it, Enid or George or whatever.” So why shouldn’t he? Six of the best cottage plants at East Lambrook A good bone structure must come first, with an intelligent use of evergreen plants so that the garden is always clothed, no matter what time of year,” wrote Margery in We Made a Garden . In spite of their wildly differing approaches to the garden, this was something her husband Walter had taught her. When Margery and Walter Fish bought a neglected medieval manor in rural Somerset as the war loomed, they could not have guessed what it would eventually become. The garden at East Lambrook Manor, open to the public since 1950, has since come to represent the classic cottage garden style. She was educated at the Friends School Saffron Walden and at a secretarial college, before spending twenty years working in Fleet Street, initially with countryside magazines and then with Associated Newspapers. There she accompanied Lord Northcliffe on a war mission to the United States in 1916, and then worked as secretary to six successive editors of the Daily Mail, the last of whom, the widower Walter Fish, she married on 2 March 1933, three years after his retirement. During and after her period with Associated Newspapers she wrote for several other papers and periodicals, including the field-sports magazine The Field.

In 1956 Margery was 64 years old. She had begun her first job before women had the vote. (She had been the secretary to the editor at the Country Gentleman’s Publishing Company before joining the Daily Mail, where she would become Walter’s assistant.) Only now, in late middle age, was she approaching fulfilment. In the weeks after We Made a Garden appeared in Britain’s bookshops, something remarkable happened: a future suddenly opened out before her—and to her astonishment and clear delight, it was more expansive even than her husband’s precious lawn. 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." A good gardening book with plenty of handy tips, plant suggestions (some albeit a bit dated) and admissions of mistakes to let you avoid the same pitfalls! Clearly none of us are ever going to achieve a Margery sized garden or house without a lottery win, but you can still dream!! In 1937, with the threat of war looming, the Fish’s decided to find a house in the country away from the dangers of central London. They finally settled on the 15th century manor house in the quiet, rural Somerset village of East Lambrook. And so, having never shown the slightest interest in gardening and with no prior knowledge, Margery embarked on her second career, finally becoming one of the most important influences on gardening in the 20th century.