Search results for ""Author Twigs Way""

Produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, the "Allotment and Garden Guides" were issued monthly throughout 1945. Aimed at the amateur gardener, they were to be the final rallying call in the wartime campaign to Dig for Victory. Concentrating on the productive garden, the guides were designed to take the amateur gardener through the basic tasks of each month. Many of the subjects tackled are as relevant now as they were then. How to make a compost heap, when to sow marrow seed, which seeds are they easiest to save, are still popular topics in the modern gardening media. However, other subjects convey the war-time difficulties: seed shortages due to enemy occupation in Europe, regulations on flower growing, and the very real prospect of running out of food next winter. Packed with additional photographs and illustrations, Twigs Way gives an historical overview to gardening during the Second world war and comments on each month of the guide. Many people still work allotment or vegetable plots that were first established during the war years, 'inheriting' them from a generation that used these guides as their gardening bibles. To read the Guides now is to experience a sense of both the urgency of the war-time garden, and the timelessness of the processes of gardening.

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Allotments are a much-loved part of every British city, town and many villages. At the height of their popularity around the Second World War, allotments were increasingly neglected towards the end of the twentieth century, but are now in the throes of a full-scale revival. Many allotments now have long waiting lists, and allotment keeping has become a fashionable hobby. This book explores the fascinating story of the allotment, from its roots in the Diggers of the seventeenth century to the influence of ‘food miles’ and GM. It includes insights into quirky rules and regulations, murder and looting, and even art and opera on the allotment. Drawing on archival and contemporary material, this richly illustrated book considers both the history and the future of the not-so-humble allotment. This book is part of the Britain’s Heritage series, which provides definitive introductions to the riches of Britain’s past, and is the perfect way to get acquainted with allotments in all their variety.

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England is a nation of gardeners and most of us garden in suburbia. A private paradise encompassed by privet, the suburban garden contains in its small compass the hopes and dreams of millions of gardeners past and present. From Victorian shrubberies to the 1980s ‘Good Life’, these small plots reveal the ever-changing aspirations and realities of the suburban dweller. Lauded by estate agents and satirised in literature, suburban plots are scattered with seating, sundials, goldfish ponds, and that most divisive of features: the overgrown hedge. With one foot in the country and one in the town, suburban garden style wavers from rural retreat to urban chic, decorative to productive, floral to formal. At its heart it is defined by its location and its size. Neglected by history, and sometimes in reality, this book celebrates the gardens that make up the green patchwork of suburbia. This book is part of the Britain’s Heritage series, which provides definitive introductions to the riches of Britain’s past, and is the perfect way to get acquainted with Suburban Gardens in all their variety.

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Almost eighty years after her death, Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) is still one of the most influential of all English garden designers. Best known for the superb use of colour schemes in her hallmark flower borders, she combined an early training in art with self-taught horticultural skills. Early influences included William Morris, John Ruskin and William Robinson, but it is her partnership with the architect Edwin Lutyens that produced some of the most distinctive of Edwardian houses and gardens. From her house (and nursery) at Munstead Wood, Surrey, Jekyll designed over 400 gardens across Britain and Europe, and some in America where her archive of designs and drawings is now held. This book explores her life, influences on her early work in art and crafts, the transfer to Munstead Wood and working relationship with Edwin Lutyens, as well as her own writings and achievements.

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Beans as bullets', 'Vegetables for Victory' and 'Cloches against Hitler': these slogans convey just how vital gardening and growing food were to the British war effort during the Second World War. Exhorted to 'Grow More Food', then to 'Dig for Victory', Britain's 'allotment army' was soon out in force, growing as many vegetables as possible in suburban allotments, private gardens, even the grounds of stately homes. Richly illustrated with contemporary photographs and ephemera relating to the 'Dig For Victory' campaign, this expertly researched, highly engaging and informative account also includes archive images of home front gardening, garden produce and advertisements.

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