We Made a Garden

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The battle with horsetails will never end, the butterfly bush mostly feeds bugs, the escalonia requires a firm hand to prevent it taking over the world. Margery clearly won the bulk of the battles even in the earlier years but it must have been much easier after his death. They had married in 1933 after working together at the Daily Mail and while Walter had had gardens of his own in his previous homes, this was the first one Margery had ever been involved with. The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach.

Every weekend, when my sisters were navvying to make a garden round the little house we built, I sailed off on my bicycle to play golf. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels. Very enjoyable read of an English couple creating a garden in a forsaken plot of land, in 1940s England.And I never stopped saying the most scathing things about gardeners, what fools they were always to be working and never enjoying their gardens, and what was the good of having a lovely garden if you never had time to sit in it and enjoy it? Fresh starts, hidden rooms, difficulties that turn into assets, wicked landlords, fairy godmothers who compost. I also noticed how overbearing her husband was, and how she enjoyed doing things her own way later on when she gardened by herself. Even if it is a garden you know by heart there are twelve months in the year and every month means a different garden, and the discovery of things unexpected all the rest of the year.

In this beautiful and timeless work, she recounts the trails and tribulations, successes and failures, of her venture with ease and humour. But I didn't but it for that, I bought it because it's a beautiful, beautiful book and because I wanted inspiration for my allotment.

Clearly none of us are ever going to achieve a Margery sized garden or house without a lottery win, but you can still dream! It is written in a lovely informal style discussing her successes and failures as she created her garden.

Over the next few weeks, I levered up every brick from the non-cemented floor and carried them up the stairs, through the kitchen and all the way out to the back garden.

Gardening books are always wonderful and, as ever, I came away with notes of new plants to try and new techniques. Being so very historic, you’ll need to excuse the quality of these pre-digital photos – or don’t, if you’d rather not). As another reviewer noted, in the words of LP Hartley, "the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," and perhaps it is those glimpses into the domestic life of a far off land that compelled me to keep going: a lady in her long dinner dress and satin slippers perched precariously, balanced with a watering can to water the tops of her walls where trails of greenery fall.