#BookReview ‘American Gardens’ by Monty Don and Derry Moore

About the book…

For years, Britain’s much-loved gardener Monty Don has been leading us down all kinds of garden paths to show us why green spaces are vital to our wellbeing and culture. Now, he travels across America with celebrated photographer Derry Moore to trace the fascinating histories of outdoor spaces which epitomize or redefine the American garden.

In the book, which complements the BBC television series, they look at a variety of gardens and outdoor spaces at the center of American history including the slave garden at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate, Longwood Gardens in Delaware, and Middleton Place in South Carolina. Together, they visit verdant oases designed by modernist architects such as Richard Neutra.

They delve into urban outdoor spaces, looking at New York City’s Central Park, Lurie Garden at the southern end of Millennium Park in Chicago, and the Seattle Spheres. Derry Moore gives his unique perspective on gardens across the United States, including several not featured in the TV series. These include unpublished photographs of Bob Hope’s Palm Springs home and garden of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Featuring luscious photography and Don’s engaging commentary, this book will leave you with a richer understanding of how America’s most important gardens came to be designed.

Many thanks to Bei Guo of Midas PR for the invite to read this gorgeous, illustrated guide to ‘American Gardens’ by Monty Don and Derry Moore! It’s a stunner of a coffee table book which is out on the 22nd September,from Prestel Books.

As I am looking through the pages of this book, in order to write what I hope is a coherent review, our county has been locked down again. A fortnight of travel inhibited by the borders of a place which is rich with beaches, forests, woods and castles is suddenly off the table. A stone’s throw from where we live and suddenly we cannot go there any more. This has left me reflecting on what the outdoors, what gardens and access to nature mean to us, and how deprivation of this may have affected us during 2020.

What it means is to step outside the borders of the house, the building in which we invest so many of our hours, and even made into our workspaces, and to truly breathe

In the pages of ‘American Gardens’, a respite is offered whilst taking a journey through places on a continent which is so hard to define,as the introduction states, there is no cohesive answer to the question ‘What is an American garden?’

So many cultures and nationalities have come together to create the States, that to pinpoint one single reference is impossible, the nature of the landscape, the weather and the climate change so much from state to state, let alone north to south.

Rather than search for a definition, Derry Moore who has spent many years living in America and Monty Don, a frequent visitor, bring their internal and external influences to bear on the photographic and geographical natures of the ones that they do manage to visit. As large a book as this is, they acknowledge that what they present is a selection rather than a definitive volume, leaving hope for further books such as this.

The pictures are exquisite and truly joyful, they inhabit a sense of history, space and time which is unique and startling in their clarity and perspective. Each one pulls you in to a central feature and then, as your eyes move away, the details begin to make themselves apparent, leading to a layered response over the course of reading. The exceptionally high quality of production means that even turning the pages is an act of luxuriating in the texture of the paper and the smell of the print.

The accompanying text frames the pictures with travel tales, happy accidents which divert travel and take the duo to a new garden, and historical details which add depth to what you are looking at.

What Derry and Monty identify is the sense of the gardens as being part of  human attempt to bring their influence to bear in a landscape which is bigger than can be coralled. Whereas many gardens are defined by their borders and the almost geometric nature of their beds, here are Italina man made islands which bring a faded essence of gondolas with a modern city scape just visible in the background. Modern aritfices with vertical gardens growing inside them are a meeting or organic and metallic. The overgrown ruins of Southern gardens, carefully maintained as symbolic emblems to a time when slavery was an economic necessity are not harkening back to glory days, they stand as reminders of times we should never return to. The pleasing symmetry of formal vegetable gardens and walled gardens are mixed with overgrown orangeries, cacti and palm trees as landcaping meets nature.

As much as we are reduced in our current capacity to travel, to take ourselves away, there are books such as this one which provide moments of pure joy and escapism. We may not be able to physically travel, but we can still dream.

About the authors…

Monty Don is a well-known gardening writer and broadcaster. He lives with his family, garden and dogs in Herefordshire.

Twitter @TheMontyDon

DERRY MOORE’s photographs have been reproduced in numerous magazines including Architectural Digest, Vogue, Town and Country, Men’s Vogue, and Nest. His books include An English Room, Great English Interiors, and London’s Great Theatres (all by Prestel).

Twitter @DerryMoore777

Prestel_UK @midaspr