New Country Garden - Softcover

Elspeth Thompson writes about gardening for the "Sunday Telegraph Magazine". Two collections of her work have been published as "The Urban Gardener" and "A Tale of Two Gardens". She is also the author of "New Decorated Garden" (also Ryland Peters & Small).

While town and city gardens are undergoing major transformations into decked , stainless steel and concrete living spaces, a quieter revolution is taking place in rural retreats. Cottage gardens are evolving in tune with today's green ideologies and where once a metal arch or obelisk would be used they are now made of hazel or willow. Pergolas and seating too are increasingly being made from natural materials and the understanding of organic gardening necessitates the addition of wildlife-friendly boundaries and water features. These ideas tumble over into a more relaxed form of planting. No longer is there a major autumn clear-up and cut-back, but flower heads and leaves are being left for wildlife whilst at the same time enhancing the winter landscape by their skeletal forms. Planting too is changing from the pastel hues of the past to the more vibrant colours of modern plants of today such as cannas and dahlias. Formal knot gardens are becoming less formal with a loose inner planting of ornamental grasses or blowsy meadow flowers. Hedgerows are left slightly overgrown to provide homes and food for wild creatures who in turn help with the control of pests in the garden. Lawns are turning into wildlife havens, increasingly becoming wild areas of natural flora and prairie-like grasses. Elspeth Thompson, most famous for her "Sunday Telegraph" magazine features brings these new country gardens to life with her engaging style of writing whilst the luscious photographs of Melanie Eclare illustrate the variety and beauty of these bucolic havens. As the subtitle of this book so succinctly puts it, this is "A Plant Lover's Paradise".