Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden

Tracing the Origins of Havenwood

Vintage gardening book, Rosemary Verey’s Making of a Garden in the Entry Garden this week at Havenwood.

“All these thoughts have influenced me - almost subconsciously - in my own designing…

Some of the planting and features reflect the many influences I have had in my gardening life - from people, places and books.

Thoughts crowd into my mind now, as they always do when I'm walking round the garden, remembering all the things my gardening friends and acquaintances have told me and all the garden scenes I have found inspiring.”

🌿 Rosemary Verey’s Making of a Garden

Gardening is a very personal thing, and garden designs certainly grow out of a giant catalog of plant lessons learned, experiences of other gardens, and the people who you have met along the way. When I thought recently about the many gardens and gardeners that formed my ideas of how a garden should be put together, Rosemary Verey ranked high on my list of early influences.

Who was Rosemary Verey?

Rosemary Verey (1918-2001) was an English garden designer, lecturer and garden writer who designed her own home garden at Barnsley House in Gloucestershire, England. An established Chelsea award winner, Rosemary Verey also:

“helped plant and develop the gardens of Woodside, Elton John's estate in Berkshire, as well as King Charles' Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, and gardens for Princess Michael of Kent, the Marquess of Bute, and the New York Botanical Garden.”¹

She published around fifteen gardening books, and was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1999.

Her own garden at Barnsley House was open for many years to the public, and then was run as a luxury hotel, restaurant and spa by her family after her death. In the past few years it was sold by the family and purchase by The Pig, a hotel and restaurant group who has opened it back up.

Just how much did Rosemary Verey influence my garden at Havenwood?

I will leave that for you to decide, but I was quite surprised!

Join me for a walk around Havenwood with Verey’s book that helped form my imagination twenty years ago for what I would create here…

A similar dark yew hedge waits at the end of our forty-foot long Pergola Walk as ends the famous Laburnum Walk at Barnsley House.

“Designing a garden, whether it is your own or a client's, involves drawing many threads together… We must all examine our environment, always gaining inspiration from existing natural features; we will then enhance rather than overwhelm our surroundings. ”

🌿 Rosemary Verey’s Making of a Garden

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