A visit to Germany in 1937 convinced Walter Fish that war was inevitable and that they should move to the countryside. They eventually bought East Lambrook Manor in the Somerset parish of Kingsbury Episcopi in November of that year. The house, which was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1959, [3] was built of Somerset hamstone in the 15th and 16th centuries and came with two acres of land. [1] Gardening [ edit ] Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any). Other varieties named after her garden include the spurge Euphorbia characias ssp. wulfenii 'Lambrook Gold', the cotton lavender Santolina chamaecyparissus 'Lambrook Silver', and the primrose Primula 'Lambrook Mauve'. She hunted out several rare old double forms and single and named coloured forms of primrose. [1] There are varieties of Pulmonaria, Penstemon, Bergenia, Dicentra, Hebe, Euphorbia characias and Hemerocallis named after her. [7] She is credited with aptly naming the variety Astrantia major subsp involucrata 'Shaggy' on discovering it in her garden. [8] I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy in Liverpool. I have been there for nearly a week and had I known you were there, I would have seen you. It is difficult to find appointments just now, but yours is an exceptional case. You crossed the Atlantic when the submarines were at their worst and I have always given special treatment to those of my staff who took the risk. I will do my utmost. Meanwhile please come and see me tomorrow, Tuesday morning at 11.30 at No 1 Carlton Gardens. We all have a lot to learn and in every new garden there is a chance of finding inspiration - new flowers, different arrangements or fresh treatment for old subjects. 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.'

We Made a Garden (Modern Library Gardening) by Margery Fish

If ever a garden was born of creative tension, it is the one at East Lambrook Manor in Somerset. When Margery Fish moved there with her husband, Walter in 1937, she wished to fill beds with simple cottage garden plants; he desired neat lawns, straight paths and bright summer bedding. Margery went on to record their battle for control in her 1956 book, We Made A Garden; with its passive aggressive tone, it is as much about their marriage as the garden, yet it is still a horticultural classic to be read and re-read. For many years Fish indeed used very little gardening help. She squeezed her writing around working 18-hour days on developing and maintaining the garden, even doing dry stone walling and path-laying herself. Her silver garden caught the heat of the day, and her damp, shady garden used a stream that ran behind an old malthouse. The silver-leafed wormwood Artemisia absinthium 'Lambrook Silver' is still a popular variety. Sissinghurst is famed for its White Garden, but the concept is fairly widespread. Margery’s developed scheme of white-flowering and silver-leafed plants was modest but attractive.Margery Fish working at her desk at East Lambrook Manor (picture right).She wrote many articles and books, including the timeless classic, ‘We Made A Garden’, which charts the trials and tribulations of her early years in gardening with Walter Fish at East Lambrook Manor. This was an interesting that I didn’t necessarily love or hate. Part memoir, part textbook, part gardening resource, a little antiquated. I appreciated Fish’s anecdotes and wished there were more peppered throughout. Margery Fish was a novice at gardening, but she knew that she wanted an informal garden using cottage garden flowers, while allowing also for self-spreading and self-seeding of native plants. There was to be floral interest appearing all the year round. Her husband, on the other hand, preferred a more formal style with extravagant displays of summer flowers. The battle of wills between them was described in the first of her gardening books, We Made a Garden (1956), which is as much about a difficult marriage as about the difficulties of starting a garden from scratch. [4]

We Made a Garden by Margery Fish | Waterstones

That's what this book is all about. Learning and sharing experiences. That's how all gardeners should be and it resumes a lot about the joy of gardening.

This book charmed me by the cover and hypnotized me with old-fashioned language, both British and Latin. Obsessed gardeners will love it. Others, possibly not.

We Made a Garden by Margery Fish, Introduction by Michael We Made a Garden by Margery Fish, Introduction by Michael

Margery Fish died in South Petherton Hospital, Somerset, on 24 March 1969, leaving her house and garden to a nephew, Henry Boyd-Carpenter. He and other relatives kept up the garden and extended the nursery. [1] They were sold in 1985, but the next owners, Andrew and Dodo Norton, maintained the garden and nursery and continued to develop the legacy of Margery Fish, before handing over to the Williams family in 1999. [13] She was educated at the Friends School Saffron Walden and at a secretarial college, before spending twenty years working in Fleet Street, initially with countryside magazines and then with Associated Newspapers. There she accompanied Lord Northcliffe on a war mission to the United States in 1916, and then worked as secretary to six successive editors of the Daily Mail, the last of whom, the widower Walter Fish, she married on 2 March 1933, three years after his retirement. During and after her period with Associated Newspapers she wrote for several other papers and periodicals, including the field-sports magazine The Field. East Lambrook Manor Gardens is the iconic and quintessentially English cottage garden created by the celebrated 20th-century plantswoman and gardening writer Margery Fish. It was here that she developed her own style of gardening, combining old-fashioned and contemporary plants in a relaxed and informal manner to create a garden of immense beauty and charm. Walter may have been seen off long ago, but one can’t help but feel Margery’s presence. Owner Mike receives the odd barbed comment from Fish fans who have spied a modern plant introduction, and he can be forgiven for occasionally railing against the mistress of cottage gardening. How many of us would choose to garden with our predecessor looking over our shoulder? But as Whitty points out, “Mrs Fish was always bringing in new plants. I’d find the donor’s name on it, Enid or George or whatever.” So why shouldn’t he? Six of the best cottage plants at East Lambrook At the start of World War I, Lord Northcliffe was the most powerful man in Fleet Street, wielding influence at every level. So when in 1917 the prime minister, Lloyd George, asked him to head the British Mission to the USA, Northcliffe immediately requested that Margery be on his staff. It meant crossing the Atlantic under threat of enemy torpedoes, but she accepted without hesitation. The mission spent three years in the USA and Margery was awarded the MBE in recognition of her contribution.David St John Thomas: Journey through Britain... (London: Frances Lincoln, 2004), pp. 343–44. Retrieved 2 November 2012.