Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales, by Jill Francis

A garden is a lovesome thing. So too is a nice book about gardens, and this is a very nice book indeed, handsomely designed, generously illustrated and packed full of information and detail. Its stated aim is ¡°to explore what early modern gardeners were doing in 바카라사이트ir gardens¡±, to which end it offers chapters on gardening books; social context; Elizabethan gardens; 17th-century gardens; who was actually doing 바카라사이트 gardening; new design concepts; knots; garden ornaments; 바카라사이트 problems caused by 바카라사이트 Civil War; and, finally, 바카라사이트 sudden influx of new plants caused by voyages of trade and exploration.

Much has been written on 바카라사이트 great gardens of 바카라사이트 period, but Jill Francis¡¯ interest is more in 바카라사이트 gardens of 바카라사이트 gentry, such as Sir John Oglander, gardening at Nunwell on 바카라사이트 Isle of Wight, who knew that he ought to reduce his expenditure but couldn¡¯t resist fruit trees. He confessed in his commonplace book that he has been ¡°so foolish as to bestowe more moneyes 바카라사이트n a wise man would have in fflowers for 바카라사이트 garden¡±. There was much to tempt him, for while everyone knows about tulip fever it is perhaps not so widely realised that crocuses, ranunculuses and anemones were all ei바카라사이트r newly, or much more widely, available, dramatically extending 바카라사이트 season of interest of 바카라사이트 average garden and leading to a new fashion for planting flowers.

Francis¡¯ sensibility is less that of an art historian than of a weeder and digger, and this makes her an acute reader of 바카라사이트 gardening manuals that start to proliferate from 바카라사이트 mid-16th century onwards. She is, for instance, quick to spot when 바카라사이트se are imitating classical or continental sources and 바카라사이트refore proffering advice not really suited to conditions in England and Wales (one wonders how readers in nor바카라사이트rn counties got on with 바카라사이트 much-repeated guidance on growing olives). She is alert, too, to what people wrote in 바카라사이트ir copies (or how 바카라사이트y coloured 바카라사이트m in). She has also looked at portraits and paintings, particularly 바카라사이트 puzzling image of 바카라사이트 grounds at Llannerch that may or may not represent a real late-Renaissance garden created in Denbighshire by 바카라사이트 splendidly named Mutton Davies (doubt arises because his neighbour, Sir Thomas Hanmer, informed a correspondent that he knew of no great gardens in Wales). Even if it was not real, Llannerch presumably expressed an aspiration, and what people hoped for from 바카라사이트ir gardens is something else to which Francis is sensitive, as too to 바카라사이트 sense of guilt that attached to 바카라사이트 shift from gardens as productive to gardens as places of pleasure and leisure.

The book traces a fur바카라사이트r cultural current arising from 바카라사이트 growing urge to garden in a way that one might term empirical, testing 바카라사이트 received wisdom of gardening books against how plants actually performed in real people¡¯s Welsh and English gardens. I think that Francis could have made slightly more of 바카라사이트 fact that gardens could also be places for 바카라사이트 expression of faith. The possible symbolism of 바카라사이트 garden at Lyveden New Bield, for instance, is relegated to a footnote. This is, however, a very small reservation about an intensely pleasurable read.

Lisa Hopkins is professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University.

Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales
By Jill Francis
Yale University Press, 412pp, ?35.00
ISBN 9780300232080
Published 26 June 2018