Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Stunning!	Customer Rating:
I genuinely don't remember ever reading anything quite so beautifully written and captivating. I have not been able to put it down and I have already bought several more copies to give to friends. This marvellous book is lyrical, seductive and haunting - an absolute treasure.

A book to savour

Customer Rating:

This book is a delight (as is the garden in real life) The author is knowledgeable and paints the most vivid pictures. It is a book about the area of Shropshire she lives in, how it has evolved through the centuries, the house and garden and her sensitive reconstruction of it. She is a lady after my own heart with interests such as history, gardens, cats, flowers, geology, weather....it is so well written, I highly recommend it.

A perfect book

Customer Rating:

This book is about far more than 'the story of a garden'. For me, it is that rare thing, a book that I did not want to put down and will certainly read again. It is written in such elegant prose with no superfluity almost to the point of self-effacement. The author's knowledge of so many diverse things is a constant delight to encounter. It is about gardening; about astronomy; about the roots of words and language; about the history of Morville and its environs; about the author's place amongst all this and so much more. I read as slowly as I could, not only to savour the text fully but so as to be able to go on sharing Dr.Swift's life and times in rural Shropshire for as long as possible.

Evocative writing

Customer Rating:

I'm something of an armchair gardener - all the pleasure and none of the work - and this book satisfied my liking to read about beautiful gardens. Its chapters are titled according to the monastic hours, echoing the house's monastic past. The author created a dreamlike garden out of a field beside her Shropshire house. The book is a description of the genesis of that garden with digressions into history, herbalism, religion and the uses and growing habits of the plants she seeks to cultivate. The writing is brilliantly clear and the garden comes to life as you read. There are line drawings in the style of illustrations from a medieval book of hours, though no photographs, together with a plan of the layout of the garden This is a book to be enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in gardening, history or the spirit of human endeavour. To create such a magnificent garden is truly a labour of love