Secret Gardens: Creating Romantic Retreats by Alan Toogood

 

Secret Gardens:  Creating Romantic Retreats by Alan Toogood

Reviewed by Jeanne

When I was checking the schedule for the bookblog, I realized that our Friday blog would fall on Valentine’s Day.  A look at the draft blogs didn’t reveal anything that seemed even vaguely related, so I set out to find something that would 1) be appropriate and 2) be something I could read quickly enough to write a review. My first thought involved books on chocolate or cake making but after stepping on my scales I thought it prudent to avoid anything involving food.

Fortunately I came across the book Secret Gardens:  Creating Romantic Retreats by Alan Toogood which looked very promising, even if my house is where plants come to die.  Toogood is a British author, so the gardens in question tend to be formal and complex, so I didn’t think there would be any pressure.  I’d just take one look and think, “Nope, no way I can do that.”

While that did turn out to be true overall, I found myself enjoying the book more than I thought I would.  There is a lot of text and explanation, but Toogood writes well.  He discusses the history of some aspects of gardens such as enclosures—walls and fences, certainly, but also when fashions changed, some of the large estates used “ha-has” (a sunken fence or ditch) to keep animals from wandering off.  Trimmed hedges, arbors, and other such features rose and fell in popularity as society changed and great estates became smaller.

At this point, I started thinking about all the British fiction and period films I’ve seen, realizing what some of the outdoor features really meant. It’s been a tradition to build small, secluded spaces where people could have some privacy and/or peace, but I’d never thought of it as other than a motion picture set for a specific scene. Visions of Pemberly and Beatrix Potter’s farm house danced in my head with a new understanding of the landscaping.

The book does discuss setting up your own such places, utilizing features that already exist and then enhancing them. While not really suited for a small backyard, the book is also about creating an ambiance, a feeling of being in an enchanted place no matter how small. I liked that idea a lot.

Ambitious gardeners would get some good ideas from this book, even if some of the plants may not translate well to our area. Selecting a focal point for the garden, be it a water feature or statue, is the place to start and then build your garden from there.  He offers suggestions (a sundial, perhaps?) but wants to the reader to make the garden a personal space.

Even better, the copy of the book I took from the shelf was a donation in memory of Ida Stone Jones, and one of the people for whom the Jones Center for Creative Arts, Technology and Workforce Development was named.