 BOOK
REVIEWS
The
Romantic Garden
Graham Rose
Frances Lincoln, distributed by Bookwise
$NZ38.95
THE great European romantic
tradition that Graham Rose's book evokes represented the triumph
of the imagination over formality - thus Rose aims to inspire and
tell gardeners how to make gardens that "appeal to emotion rather
than reason". Above all, he says, "these gardens must be isolated
from the everyday world where there are no reminders of the normal
working day".
A few section headings
- Creating the Sanctuary, Romance Within, the Secrets of the Garden
- give an idea of the book's drift. Certainly, fine photographs
of these tantalisingly anonymous gardens show the romantic in profusion,
occasionally upstaged by mock ruins, follies, temples and statuary.
Usefully, there's a comprehensive
24-page guide outlining plants "with the most blatantly romantic
qualities". Bear in mind, this is an English book; what may be restrained
in their climate could go on a romantic rampage or, conversely,
sulk, in ours.
Most romantics like to
create their own gardens, but some gardens herein suggest an army
of staff and bottomless pockets. Even so, The Romantic Garden can
feed dreams and is practical enough to plunder from.
Weekend
Gardener, Issue 138, 2004, Page 28
Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH
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