IN RACHEL COOKE's book Her Brilliant Career: Ten
extraordinary women of the Fifties,each personality inexorably
exerts her right to freedom from traditional roles. Chapter 4, "In
the garden", celebrates the life of Margery Fish as a feminist
icon. It focuses on Fish's first book, published in 1956, We
Made a Garden.
Her husband, Walter, was 18 years her senior. The book starts
with his prediction of war, and his decision, in 1937, that they
should move to the country. They eventually arrive at East Lambrook
Manor, in Somerset. And so began the garden-making; but the "we" in
the title encompasses grudging compromise, concessions, and a
domestic war
After Walter's death, in 1947, Fish can begin to flourish, and
so, too, does her garden. Dahlias are ditched, and borders encroach
on his lawn. She even takes a crowbar to Walter's suburban-style
paving. As Cooke puts it: "A tiny part of you begins to wonder if
she didn't, in the end, bump him off, burying him in the dead of
night beneath the nearest holly bush."
If We Made a Garden is actually about a dysfunctional
relationship, Fish's best book (in my opinion), Gardening in
the Shade, is truly about plants. Published in 1964, when East
Lambrook had become the cottage garden crammed with plants which
Fish had always wanted, it can still help us to view shade as an
asset to be celebrated.
Walking round my garden, I encounter many of her favourites. I
grow the white-flowered form of the hardy begonia Begonia
grandis ssp. evansiana, with striking crimson stems and
crinkled, red-backed leaves. A bell-flower with leaves that look
like a stinging nettle, Campanula trachelium thrives in a
gloomy spot, and may be blue- or white-flowered single or double. I
also see new planting opportunities. A new shed has brought another
north-facing wall. Maturing trees and shrubs create pockets of
shade.
In this shade-positive mindset, I came across a contemporary
source of inspiration at the RHS Malvern spring show, in the form
of a show-garden, "Out of Darkness", by Lisa Burchill and Robin
Ideson - two young designers with the same message: to highlight
the wonderful array of shade-tolerant plants.
The budget had been strict, but there was showmanship to draw
you in. On the back wall, innovative moss graffiti in the shape of
a stylised tree image reminded me of a henna-tattoo detail. On the
patio, three moss-covered cubes picked up the moss theme and
anchored the design. But the surrounding beds would be easy to
replicate.
Skimmias and sarcococcas gave some evergreen backdrop to
camassias with flower spikes in shades of violet-blue, brunneras
with a haze of forget-me-not-like flowers, and tiarellas creating a
drift of light with their fluffy little pokers.
One plant really caught my eye with its shiny grey- and
dark-green leaves with a creamy-white margin. I was told that it
was Euonymus japonicus "President Gauthier", a versatile
evergreen. It can be kept small by clipping; grown in containers;
or used for hedging up to six foot.
