Garden People by Ursula Buchan (Thames & Hudson)

I have just read this most interesting book and decided to write a review. It is a collection of photographs taken by Valerie Finnis (of artemisia fame) over several decades. They have been assembled by Ursula Buchan, who wrote the text, providing information about who the people in the photos were, and what their connection was with Valerie Finnis. There is also a series of short biographies of the people mentioned in the book by Brent Elliott, as well as a short biographical essay by Anna Pavord.

A Thames & Hudson book (2007)

There has always been an interest in gardening and garden writing. However, beginning in the early 1980s, this interest developed rapidly in North America. Much of it was the result of numerous very good gardening books that were published in the U.S. at the time  and quickly  became classics of the genre such as Allen Lacy and Henry Mitchell's books (among many others), and especially Eleanor Perenyi's Green Thoughts (1981) which I would say is my favourite.

Traditionally, British people have been much more interested in gardening than North Americans, and  there have been numerous excellent garden writers all through the 20th century, beginning with Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. British garden writers, gardeners and gardens, benefited from this new found interest in gardening at the end of the 20th century, and names like Christopher Lloyd, Penelope Hobhouse, Rosemary Verey and Vita Sackville-West became quite well-known, mostly through their writings.

Valerie Finnis in old age (from the book reviewed)

Garden People, by Ursula Buchan (Thames & Hudson, 2007) is a book meant for all of us who have been reading about gardening and gardeners.  It is a series of portraits of gardeners photographed over several decades by Valerie Finnis. Some of these gardeners, like Margery Fish, Will Ingwersen, Graham Stuart Thomas and Vita Sackville-West are well known. Some of the others names might ring a bell, such as Sir Cedric Morris, Dame Miriam Rothschild, Miss Havergal and Valerie's own husband, David Scott (featured in The Englishman's Garden edited by Alvide Lees-Milne and Rosemary Verey, 1988).

There are also portraits of much less known but unusually interesting gardeners, some of whom would have contributed to maintaining the British reputation for eccentricity such as Cecily 'Parsley" Mure shown watering her alpine trough in an evening gown, and Rhoda, Lady Birley, who also cuts quite a figure with her corduroy slacks, fancy shoes, scarves, old cardigan and bee hive battered straw hat.

Margery Fish

I enjoyed the book very much, in large part because it allowed me to put faces on many names I had read about over the years. The photographs are very good (especially when you consider that Valerie Finnis never took more than one exposure because of the price of photographic film).

Valerie Finnis must have been an original lady. She noticed the man she was to marry because he was the only person she had met who was able to identify Gillenia trifoliata! A photo shows them both in the garden weeding an hour after their wedding (admittedly late in life for both of them)!

Ursula Buchan's text is, as always, very informative and interesting. Anna Pavord's reminiscences contribute a lot to a more rounded picture of Finnis, and Brent Elliott obviously did a lot of research to provide a biography of each of the gardeners mentioned and photographed in the book. Garden People is a testament to another era,  when plants were grown in clay pots, women gardened in "frocks" and men in tweed jackets.

I would like to thank Thames & Hudson for allowing me to use photos taken of the book cover and of some of the portraits in the book.