AN AXE, A SPADE, AND TEN ACRES: The Story of a Garden and Nature Reserve

by George Courtauld ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1985

Not exactly rural homesteading: on his ten acres on the Essex/Sussex border (a wedding gift, with its capacious house, from his father), Courtauld has gardeners and other help--indeed, ""It has always been by policy that, when possible, an expert be used for any job. . . One can then have an idea and start something up--be an entrepreneur--and then hand over the details and the skill to the men who really know the subject."" But if Courtauld is hardly a model for the country-dweller with a few acres and tools, there is much pleasure and matter for thought in his account--illustrated with map and line drawings--of how he transformed an overgrown site, fashioned lawns and flower beds, hedges and copses, paths and ponds, into a many-chambered garden and nature preserve. First, he and ""Bell the woodsman"" cleared the lawn to get an overall picture. Hedges were tidied, weeds conquered in the flower beds, shrubbery eliminated and added with an eye to the birds. Paths are laid through the woodland--the foremost named by the children Gnat Walk. Ecological communities emerge--like the Silver Garden, an open woodland lightly shaded by birches, where low-growing, shallow-rooted violets, wood anemones, primroses, and strawberries grow; it becomes an intentional glade after Courtauld sees Doctor Zhivago. ""Water"" brings mention of Courtauld's ""slight dislike"" of flag iris, occasioned by a sword accident during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Under ""Natural Gardening,"" we hear that after wife Dominie ""had given birth to four children, I suggested that we had bred enough, so in pique she started to breed ponies instead""--which leads into consideration of the recalcitrant pony pasture. It's a book of precise description, myriad byways, and easy, only occasionally hothouse charm--fine for winter evenings and the first stirrings of spring.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION