Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
How did it all start?
As a child I lived in Northern Ireland so I grew up surrounded by natural beauty. But it wasn’t until I was about 30 when I visited Tintinhull in Dorset that I realised that gardening wasn’t just about what you did – cutting down nettles, or weeding and so on – but about beauty: creating a garden is also fulfilling man’s need for organisation and security.
After that, I became completely passionate about plants. It started with shrubs and trees. I carried around a reference book, The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs – and read it in bed at night of course – and I had a notebook to write down every single plant I came across. Then when I saw it again I’d remember it. It was a sort of game I had to play. I had to know. It also showed people you were serious and once other gardeners know that, they’re immensely generous with their time and their knowledge.
I’ve still got my 1972 edition and although I’ve got two other copies, there are so many notes in my first edition that I’ve had to have it rebound. It’s a constant companion.
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Penelope Hobhouse is one of the world’s leading experts in gardening history and design. Having restored the garden while she lived at Hadspen House in Somerset, she started writing and designing gardens for others while living at Tintinhull, which has one of the most harmonious small gardens in Britain. Her books cover not only design, planting and the practicalities of gardening but also the role of plants in history and the history of horticulture itself.
The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs contains detailed descriptions of over 9,000 plants, covering a wide range of trees, shrubs, climbers, conifers and bamboos. Do you use this for your work?
Yes, I use it all the time, alongside other plant catalogues like David Austin’s Roses. I find it very useful from a technical point of view. It tells you quite a lot about the trees and shrubs. First of all it gives you a brief idea of botany, so you know what a pennate leaf is or something like that. It also teaches you where it comes from and who found it.
So a useful thing to have when you are wandering around London’s Kew Gardens – or indeed any garden – and you want to know what you are looking at.
Yes. If you are involved in plants you are endlessly making notes as you go around. I usually make my notes and then have a look and read up on them in Hilliers. Whenever I go and look at a garden, I always have a Hillier Manual with me.
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Arabella Lennox-Boyd is an Italian-born English garden designer. She has won six gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show and the Best in Show Award in 1998. Over a career spanning 40 years she has undertaken commissions all over the world, ranging from small town gardens to large historical landscapes. Her client list includes Sting and Sir Terence Conran
