Eleven years ago I bought a beautiful garden book with an intriguing title: The Laskett. Subtitled, \u201cThe Making of a Garden,\u201d the book chronicled the creation of a horticultural masterpiece that was also the unique manifestation of the bond between the author, Roy Strong, and his artistic and talented wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman. Sir Roy Strong, also a person of many talents, is a scholar, historian, critic, former director of England\u2019s Victoria and Albert Museum and one of those freelance intellectuals that England seems to produce in every generation.
\n I read The Laskett from cover to cover, drawn to the intricate, themed gardens that were inspired by great classical and English landscapes and informed by history, art, literature and the owners\u2019 artistic and intellectual passions. Perhaps the most amazing part of the whole endeavor was that the couple was not extremely wealthy. Though the Laskett became an extraordinary garden, it was financed piecemeal as funds came in from various jobs and projects. Both Strong and Oman planted and toiled in their four-acre domain, though Strong seems to have done more of the physical labor. Julia also kept copious records of the garden\u2019s progress, eventually compiling over ninety notebooks on every phase of its development.
\nAt the time The Laskett was published, Strong and Oman had succeeded in creating what he calls, \u201cthe largest private formal garden developed in England since 1945.\u201d The garden, as portrayed in the book, was a joyous horticultural gallery chock full of beautiful examples of the gardener\u2019s art. Framed, ornamented and accented by clipped evergreens, the Laskett gardens were home to a wide array of disparate design elements, including antique apple trees, formal and informal plantings, long walkways, temples, arbors, parterres, pediment-topped columns, classically inspired statuary, fanciful memorials to beloved pets and even a viewing platform modeled on the ornate howdahs traditionally used to carry passengers on elephants\u2019 backs.
\nEvery time I opened The Lasket during the past eleven years, I returned with joy to the idyllic scenes frozen in time between its pages. In real life, however, things changed. Just as Roy Strong completed the book, Julia died of cancer. The Laskett garden, complex and always a challenge to maintain, had become overplanted and overgrown in places. After Julia\u2019s death, Roy Strong, affirming his love for her and his ongoing love affair with the garden they made together, began the process that led to his new book, Remaking a Garden.
\nHe begins by recapping the garden\u2019s history, alluding to its autobiographical character. Since Julia was a noted theatrical set designer and Roy, a frustrated set designer turned museum director, the garden became, in effect a series of sets. Those \u201csets\u201d were intensely personal to Oman and Strong and though the garden had become very well known by 2003, it was still essentially the couple\u2019s private Eden. The changes documented in Remaking a Garden, illustrated with before, in-progress and after photos, resulted in a Laskett that is more open and outward facing.
\nSome of the changes were extreme. The \u201cSilver Jubilee Garden,\u201d for example, originally installed in honor of Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s Silver Jubilee in 1977, was completely demolished, except for a path originally laid by Strong. It was eventually remade, minus the original plantings of laurels and conifers that had grown claustrophobically large. The renovated Silver Jubilee Garden features a more open plan, its newly simplified plant collection bordered by clipped box hedges.
\nIf there is a single theme in Remaking a Garden, it is the letting in of light. As Roy Strong gradually emerges from the grief over Julia\u2019s death, he undertakes the task of evaluating design elements and trimming back the many overgrown trees and shrubs that have begun to overwhelm the garden. Light returns, perspectives change and areas that were closed off from each other suddenly open and connect. The whole process stands as a metaphor for the transition taking place in Strong\u2019s intellectual and emotional life.
\nStrong makes no bones about the fact that his domain of choice is the formal plantings, especially the evergreen shrubs and trees that provide so much of the structure. Julia was a plant collector who amassed countless varieties of crab apple trees, pulmonarias, snowdrops and other plants. Some of these, like the crab apples, have been given away, because there were simply too many to care for. Others continue to bloom at the Laskett. The busy, productive Kitchen Garden, in particular, must have been Julia\u2019s domain. It was not obliterated or repurposed, but greatly simplified into a m\u00e9lange of vegetables, flowers and herbs.
\nEconomics has also played a role in the Laskett\u2019s transition. The high cost of maintenance and the economic crisis that enveloped the world in 2008 made it important to open the garden more frequently to paying customers. This meant improvements designed to enhance accessibility, simplify maintenance and provide an optimal visiting experience for garden guests. According to the author, the efforts were successful and the Laskett is now fully booked for its bi-weekly open days.
\nRemaking a Garden is a much bigger book than The Laskett, with many more \u201caction shots\u201d\u2014pictures of Roy Strong and his small brigade of garden helpers engaged in the restoration work. Julia Trevelyan Oman may have been gone for eleven years, but her sensibility and presence permeate every page, like the lingering fragrance of rosemary, her favorite herb.
\nMost of us could never create anything as extraordinary as the Laskett garden. But even if your garden consists of a few petunias in a pot, buy or borrow, The Laskett and Remaking a Garden. These are not ordinary gardening books. They are about the beauty of unusual partnerships\u2014both horticultural and human. They are about creativity and the unusual ways that life can be enriched by art, poetry, literature and history. Remaking a Garden is also a beautiful lesson about creating new life from loss. It is the essence of life and garden restoration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eleven years ago I bought a beautiful garden book with an intriguing title: The Laskett. Subtitled, \u201cThe Making of a Garden,\u201d the book chronicled the creation of a horticultural masterpiece that was also the unique manifestation of the bond between the author, Roy Strong, and his artistic and talented wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman. Sir Roy … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[505,643,863,874,873,237,872,870,871],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-english-gardens","tag-garden-books","tag-garden-design","tag-garden-renovation","tag-julia-trevelyan-oman","tag-public-gardens","tag-remaking-a-garden","tag-roy-strong","tag-the-laskett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1110,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions\/1110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}