An English Garden in ProvenceAt a young age Natasha Spender came into contact with the renowned gardens of such literary figures as Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Harold Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West, and Michael Astor. In the 1960s she and her husband, the poet Sir Stephen Spender, acquired the ruins of a farmhouse enclosed in the dramatic skyline of the Alpilles. After years of hard work the result was a unique garden. Lady Spender’s gardening friendships with the locals and neighbors, the regular and inspiring visits of friends such as John Bayley and Iris Murdoch, Francis Bacon, and the Annans, her explorations of the surrounding landscape, and passages from Stephen Spender’s unpublished journals, all contribute to this enchanting book. It is both a record of the creation of a beautiful garden in the arid hills of Provence, and a treasure trove for devoted gardeners. |
Common terms and phrases
Alpilles apricot Arles arrived Barberry Barberry Walk Baux beauty bloom Bobbie and Yves Bruern buddleias Calans canisse ceanothus charm Château Cistus climate colours corner cultivated cypresses Deffaut Destet early enjoy Euphorbia Euphorbia characias farmhouse feeling flowers foliage Fontanille Fontvieille foreground fremontodendron friends fruit Funtington Gogh Grey Walk ground happy harvest hedge Hibiscus syriacus Hidcote high summer hillside holm oak huge imagination iris La Follette landscape later lavender Lilac Walk limestone living looking maquis Maquis Garden Maussane Mediterranean mistral Monk's House Monsieur Montagne Sainte-Victoire Mouriès natural neighbours nurseries olive orchard olive trees one's paeonies pale Petit Fontanille pine pinède Pink Border plants Provence pruning region rocks Rodrigo Moynihan Rory Rose Garden rosemary ruin Saint-Estève Saint-Jérôme scented season seemed shade shrubs Sissinghurst spring Stephen stone surrounded tall Tarascon terrace terrain valley varieties Vaucluse village vista wall wild cherry wind windbreak winter Wisteria