In the American Mid-West prairie states spring starts late. There was still snow on the ground last year in mid-April, and ice on the lakes until early May, but by late June the air temperatures were in the upper 20s, … Continue reading
Italians just don’t get it. At the inappropriately named Villa Adriana (more the size of a city than a villa) the stifling bureaucracy of the Italian State manages, but not quite succeeds in strangling something that is hauntingly beautiful. Getting … Continue reading
As a precocious 17 year-old, intent on studying architecture, what could be more appropriate for me, than asking for a book on Mies van der Rohe as a school prize? I became a devotee, and when Mies died in 1969, … Continue reading
Late February and early March is the time to see winter gardens at their best, but a couple of sad borders of garish heathers, a bit of forsythia, a few camellias, and a sea of early daffodils don’t make a … Continue reading
Spring in England is pure delight, but nowhere more so than in Kent, the self-proclaimed ‘Garden of England’. My second career was as an restauranteur, and moving to Rye, on the Kent – Sussex border in spring, I was … Continue reading
Cliveden poses me with a dilemma – how much should I write about its colourful history, and how much about the garden itself? It would be impossible to write about Sissinghurst without Vita Sackville-West, or Great Dixter without Christopher … Continue reading