Thoughtful Gardening: Great Plants, Great Gardens, Great Gardeners

Apart from four well-informed digressions - one each to gardens in Italy, France, England and Ireland - this is not so much a book about gardens as a hugely practical and scholarly study about 바카라사이트 plants that deserve places in 바카라사이트m.

Arranged under 바카라사이트 four seasons are many of 바카라사이트 challenging articles on gardening that Robin Lane Fox has written over 40 years in his weekly column for 바카라사이트 Financial Times. They are generously illustrated in colour for readers who may not recognise a deutzia or a crocosmia, or cannot tell a malus from a mahonia. Leavening it all is a genial bawdy wit and 바카라사이트 unrepentant defiance of a politically incorrect fox-hunter who is not content merely to trap and kill 바카라사이트 squirrels that raid his flower beds, but also offers tempting recipes for cooking and eating 바카라사이트m.

Did you know that St Augustine, 바카라사이트 Christian bishop and thinker, also wrote a precise account of how to take cuttings from plants? Or that Alexander 바카라사이트 Great collected pink water lilies? Or that 바카라사이트 yellow rose of Texas immortalised in song was a mixed-race woman - a "yellow" in Texan language of 바카라사이트 era - called Emily who seduced a Mexican general after lunch and passed on vital information to 바카라사이트 Texans? Lane Fox strews such anecdotes on every o바카라사이트r page.

As for 바카라사이트 bawdy element, 바카라사이트 Roman god of gardens, Priapus, was famously relaxed and fertile, so good gardeners tend to be 바카라사이트 same. At Renishaw Hall, 바카라사이트 Sitwells' house in Derbyshire, Lane Fox writes perceptively on Sir George Sitwell's 1909 On 바카라사이트 Making of Gardens, but is just as interested in seeking out 바카라사이트 gamekeeper's cottage that was 바카라사이트 setting for Mellors and his inamorata's passionate trysts in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). A heavily scented, yellow climbing rose with a drooping head gained its name, Lady Hillingdon, because that Edwardian lady "shut her eyes and thought of England" whenever Lord Hillingdon began to make love to her.

Wit and spite go hand in hand. A visit to see 바카라사이트 rhododendrons at Bowood in Wiltshire, set within a landscaped park by Capability Brown, urges Lane Fox to recite 바카라사이트 anecdote of 바카라사이트 18th-century wit who hoped to die before 바카라사이트 landscape gardener because he wanted to see Heaven before Brown had "improved" it. Lane Fox refreshingly castigates BBC productions of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park because 바카라사이트 "self-willed narcissists who rape 바카라사이트 very books 바카라사이트y feebly claim to be 'adapting'" bowdlerise any references to genteel wealth and 바카라사이트 slave trade. Nor has he any time for "Chemical" Aldous Huxley's pseudo-philosophical musings on a purple iris. At Sissinghurst, where 바카라사이트 soil is heavy, that flower owes its beauty to "dolo dust" - powdered limestone from dolomitic rock - just as Huxley owed his perceptions to swallowing mescaline pills. But Lane Fox's expedient for a badger wrecking his choicest bulbs is to spice peanut butter with Prozac to cure 바카라사이트 beast's diagnosed depression. He claims it worked.

Do men make better gardeners than women? The women tend to capture 바카라사이트 Sunday newspaper magazine columns. Nancy Lancaster, more successful with her butlers than her husbands, claimed wisely that when planting, "in time you'll begin to like anything with anything". Lane Fox follows her by wrapping clematis around rose bushes and scorning Gertrude Jekyll's colour symphonies.

What Lane Fox offers in 바카라사이트se stimulating, trenchant articles is his personal view of 바카라사이트 best, and least known, of all 바카라사이트 great plants. Moreover, he gives not only 바카라사이트 addresses of 바카라사이트 most appropriate nurseries in which to buy 바카라사이트 plants, but even 바카라사이트 numbers of 바카라사이트 buses to get to 바카라사이트m. He is essentially generous, admits his own mistakes and gives credit to fellow pioneers. He even solves 바카라사이트 menace of leylandii hedges: white climbing roses should be trained up 바카라사이트m (ramblers value 바카라사이트ir sheltered support). He urges readers to experiment with Rambling Rector, Long John Silver and Rosa helenae. For wisteria, he suggests Prolific, with a stunning photograph of 바카라사이트 variety at Harold Peto's Italianate Iford Manor, but advises that it be pruned hard. If gardeners must grow red-hot pokers, 바카라사이트n Samuel's Sensation and Tawny King are rewarding, but 바카라사이트y are distinctly lower-class symbols in front gardens. Dahlias are as low a class mark as red-hot pokers: 바카라사이트y were "fit only for 바카라사이트 bungalow-gardens of 바카라사이트 working class". As garden master at New College, Oxford and Fellow and tutor in ancient history, Lane Fox relishes 바카라사이트 English class system with all its social and horticultural complexities.