Gertrude Jekyll was one of the most important garden designers of the twentieth century. A prolific writer and a hugely influential plantswoman, her circle of friends included some of the most distinguished architects, horticulturists, artists, and writers of the time. This new volume in the Country Life Archives series celebrates Jekyll's gardens and her legendary theories on color, planting, and design with a selection of her most famous collaborations with Sir Edwin Lutyens and other important architects. The text is illustrated with over 150 superb photographs that capture the enduring magic of Jekyll's creative genius. Drawing on Country Life's archive of photographs, the book presents a fabulous selection of some of Jekyll's most famous garden collaborations with Lutyens, which spanned forty years and ranged over more than fifty gardens. Orchards, Deanery Garden, Hestercombe Gardens, Lambay Castle, and Folly Farm are among their seminal masterpieces. The work of other important contemporary architects in her circle, such as Oliver Hill at Valewood and L. Rome Guthrie at Townhill Park, are included.
Five themed chapters based on the subjects of Jekyll's own books-Home and Garden, Gardens Old and New, Gardens for Small Country Houses, Colour in the Flower Garden, and Garden Ornament-offer an opportunity to visit some of her greatest gardens. Here are Jekyll's own garden at Munstead Wood, Surrey, with her incomparable flower borders; the historical gardens at St Catherine's Court in Somerset and Owlpen Manor, Gloucestershire; and the architect, Inigo Triggs's Little Boarhunt, with its traditional formality on a small scale. Here, too, are the magnificent water gardens at Marsh Court and the exceptional restoration at The Manor House at Upton Grey in Hampshire. A final chapter on garden ornament highlights Jekyll's aesthetic guidelines on pergolas, water features, and garden houses.