It might be assumed that this is due to the quality of his clientele: kings, queens, magnates and musicians, but at the root of it all —apart from talent—is the fact that Page grew his career, quite literally, from the ground up. The re-publication of his memoir The Education of a Gardener serves as a reminder that, when it comes to designing gardens, no amount of artistic talent can make up for lack of plant knowledge.
Leonardo da Vinci, Canaletto, Joshua Reynolds and Pablo Picasso, regardless of what you think of their style, all knew how paint worked—how to mix it, how to apply it, its properties and its shortcomings. There are parallels in garden design: it is not enough to draw pleasing patterns on graph paper and to know a couple of dozen good plants that will suit most situations. Great garden designers have a plant vocabulary that runs into hundreds or even thousands. Page was one such. Why? Because his career was founded on a love of plants.
A campanula he bought at the age of 14 led him to build a rock garden to accommodate it, together with other alpines that sparked his interest. He grew his career pyramid with a broad base, founded on plant knowledge, which, combined with his artistry and talent, made him one of the greatest of garden designers. Schooled at Charterhouse in Surrey and the Slade School of Art, his knowledge was augmented with visits to great gardens and great gardeners— Lawrence Johnston at Hidcote in Gloucestershire and Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood in Surrey.
Denne historien er fra June 28, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 28, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
