Fergus Garrett

A tour of some of the UK’s most beguiling gardens in the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey, the counties that exemplify ‘the garden of England’. In these three counties a wealth of history and horticulture has combined with geography in the shape of rolling landscapes, wooded valleys and meandering waterways, to provide an attractive and fascinating collection. They are in villages and towns, as well as in deep countryside, and all are privately owned. Some have been in the possession of the same family for many generations, while others have recently been transformed by new owners. Some open for the National Garden Scheme, while others are open privately and in some cases for just the occasional day for charity. The stunning gardens explored in this visually rich guide include: Arundel Castle, Denmans, Gravetye Manor, Munstead Wood and Sussex Prairie Garden. The book also includes a gazetteer of other important gardens in the area with location advice, to enable readers to plan a more elaborate tour of this fertile garden area. Filled with stunning, specially commissioned photographs by Clive Boursnell, Secret Gardens of the South East is a unique guide that opens the gates to the most intriguing gardens in this part of England.

Xa Tollemache started her gardening life when she moved into Helmingham Hall in Suffolk in 1975, as a young wife and mother. She spent the next twenty years learning and consequently developing and improving the gardens. It was Helmingham, she always insists, that taught her how to garden - to such effect that in 1996 she was in a position to start her garden design practice. Xa Tollemache describes this book, her first, as 'a story book, the tale of the love story between me and the garden at Helmingham'. It is also a record of her career as a garden designer, exemplified by eleven other gardens, large and small, on which she has worked her design magic: her first Chelsea Flower Show garden ("I was described as 'just an amateur', which was true - but I did get a Gold Medal!"); and gardens in Dunbeath, Caithness; Castle Hill, Devon; Cholmondley, Cheshire; Bighton, Hampshire; Wilton, Wiltshire; Aldeburgh, Suffolk; Bell House, Suffolk; Stone House, Suffolk; RHS Hyde Hall, Essex - and the garden at her new home, Framsden Hall in Suffolk.

In this engaging and fascinating exchange of personal letters, two of the most influential gardeners of all time compare notes on successes and failures in their two very different gardens. As Christopher Lloyd and Beth Chatto convey their gardening experiences, share gossip and discuss life and nature, the horticultural expertise of these two long-established friends and distinguished gardeners gives these inspirational letters a life of their own. Beth Chatto’s garden in East Anglia is a place of pilgrimage for plant lovers, while Christopher Lloyd was one of the major figures in twentieth century gardening, transforming the gardens of his home Great Dixter in East Sussex. Friday 16 February Dear Beth, Today was straight out of my idea of heaven – the first such day this year and the first time that all the winter crocuses have opened wide, in appreciation. Armed with my kneeling pad, I dropped to my knees to savour the honey scent of C. chrysanthus ‘Snow Bunting’. Rosemary Alexander, who spends more and more time at Stoneacre (the National Trust property near Maidstone, which she rents), expressed doubts on whether it wouldn’t be better to concentrate on snowdrops, seeing that crocuses spend so much of their time in an obstinately closed state, loudly proclaiming ‘this isn’t good enough for me’. I can see her point, of course. […] Tuesday 20 February Dear Christo, What a good thing you enjoyed your crocuses when you had the chance! Today we are blanketed in snow once more, with a wild north wind hurling stinging dry snow horizontally past the windows. Your way of having crocuses (and many other bulbs) naturalized in short grass is a far more effective way of growing them than in conventional borders. Left to seed themselves in little knots and ribbons of colour they appear like embroidery across a carpet before something else takes over the design. […]

Christopher Lloyd, icon and iconoclast of the gardening world, was born at Great Dixter, in East Sussex, in 1921 and died there in 2006. In the years between he developed the garden at Dixter into a mecca for plantsmen and a hub of ideas and connections that spread throughout the world. And from the 1930s almost until his death he was also photographing the garden, recording it in intimate detail as it changed and developed. A carefully chosen selection of Christopher's photographs is published here, the majority for the first time. They are juxtaposed with images from the Lloyd family's earliest days at Dixter, and with photographs taken by Carol Casselden and others of the garden as it is today.