Et in arcadia ego

The economy is in tatters, Europe in turmoil — but don’t worry: there is an antidote to the prevailing angst, and it’s provided by this book. It could be read simply as a close look at an undemonstrative corner of the English countryside, informed by the special understanding of a landowner, Jason Gathorne-Hardy, and an artist, Tessa Newcomb. But really it offers a philosophy. ‘Il faut cultiver notre jardin,’ said Voltaire. And that’s just what author and illustrator do here, both practically and imaginatively.  

Each of the monthly chapters opens with a paragraph of ‘garden notes’, compiled from the diaries of working gardeners. So much for the practical side. But the general effect of the book is to create a sense of arcadia, a special place of the mind into which the stressed can retreat and find another world — an England of the imagination. Much care and skill, labour and patience have been expended in nurturing the produce of this two-acre garden at Glemham House, East Suffolk, where Gathorne-Hardy grew up. Fairly pointlessly, one might think, given the ubiquity of Tesco. But the pointlessness is the point. Art, an enthusiasm for growing things and a poignant love of place — with its many dialect words for stream, that include ‘gull’ and ‘groop’ — all have been brought together in this idiosyncratic book.

Gardens in literature are often secret places, and this one is no different. It is surrounded by high brick walls, the building of which beggared the family responsible in the early 19th century. Year after year, a quantity of farmyard manure has been dug into the beds, transforming naturally poor soil into a marvel of fertility. A horse is said to have been buried next to the vine house, to give the vines something to get their roots into, and the grapes are certainly delicious; nutrients are topped up by burying any dead animal picked up around the estate in the same pit.