to David. The garden became her place to shine. “With my husband I always played my success very low key on purpose, because he was the clever one. That was how I saw it and that was the way I played it. He was full of charm and everybody loved him. But he wasn’t a natural in the garden. That was my area.”20 She was not alone. As with so many women before her, the garden had an emancipating effect. It was “a domain in the pre-feminist era which they could set out to conquer, and they did,” observed the historian Jenny Uglow.21 Although at this early stage, Rosemary never thought of making it her career, she knew herself well enough to admit that when she did something, she did it wholeheartedly.
Looking back on their partnership, Rosemary was insightful about the different roles she and David played in creating their garden. After the war and the loss of the head gardener, she asked, “Who has taken charge of the garden? It’s usually the woman of the house. And this has been a way for her to express her artistic talents. She’s learned about plants and she’s learned about color coordination and she’s really enjoyed doing it.” Then with a slightly annoyed tone of voice, she noted, “Usually, it’s the man who has control of the money!” Hence it is the man who says, “Why don’t we plant an avenue, why don’t we make a lake, why don’t we change the drive, and he is in the position to be able to do the much more hard landscaping, the things that are going to be more expensive to do.”22 Certainly this was the case here with David in control of the money and David focusing on the architectural features of their garden.
David also assumed important leadership roles in the Church, serving on the Diocesan Advisory Committee, a highly regarded position. Eventually he became Chair of that committee, a position he held for seventeen years. Rosemary joined him in her commitment to the church. They both served as warden at various times and Rosemary arranged and delivered flowers faithfully every week. Members of the congregation found it very hard to say no to Rosemary when she decided they should perform some service. Once when Anne de Courcy, the parishioner Rosemary had selected to write a history of the church, hesitated, “her eyes swiveled around … in that well known way … and after a direct gaze from Rosemary,” she capitulated.
When the church meetings were in the evening, Rosemary could become confrontational, especially when she had been drinking. She could be prickly, but at least she was also self-aware. Anne recalls she acknowledged that, “If I’m on anything, I feel I have to run it. I feel I have to be Queen Bee.”
While Rosemary was busy supporting David in his High Sheriff role and in the governance of the Church, she continued to enhance her knowledge and horticultural skills. She began to learn about mixed borders, herbaceous plants, and spring bulbs. She had a misting system installed in one of the existing small greenhouses and started propagating plants there. Like any new enthusiast, she entered specimens of her plants into the RHS Flower Shows and competitions, winning a ribbon as a first-timer for one of her unusual willows from the Wilderness (Salix daphnoides aglaia). She continued to read voraciously – especially more contemporary books – visited gardens, took notes, and listened to the advice of others.
One local plant mentor was Nancy Lindsay, the only child of Norah Lindsay, who had been a socially prominent, much-sought-after garden designer before her death in 1948. Along with her mother, Nancy had been a close friend of Major Lawrence Johnston, the creator of Hidcote, where she ran a small nursery. Hidcote is now one of the star properties owned by the National Trust. Lawrence left his other garden in France (called Serre de la Madone) to Nancy when he died. Rosemary visited Nancy at the garden her mother Norah had created at The Manor House at Sutton Courtenay where she made copious notes. One important precept Nancy taught Rosemary was to start by growing easy plants, so she would be gratified by the results. Then she could increase her repertoire, expanding into rarer and more exotic species. It was wise advice to use plants that would thrive and flourish, rather than starting out with finicky rarities that would likely die. Nancy sold Rosemary hardy geraniums, hellebores, hostas, and other similar good plants, suggesting that rare treasures could be tried by tucking them in among these strong performers.
Although Percy Cane had urged her to always create vistas using the longest axis across the garden, it took Rosemary quite a long time to comply. Finally in 1968, she opened a vista that began at the Temple and continued for over one hundred yards to the old stone wall at the opposite end. She removed an old lonicera hedge and other obstructing plantings, which were replaced with a wide grassy walk, flanked on one side by the limes and laburnums and the other by a newly developing area Rosemary called her long border. Acknowledging Gertrude Jekyll’s advice, Rosemary incorporated yellows in this border, to “create a feeling of sunlight. A glowing yellow took over what had once been drab and was now alive.”
By the end of the 1960s, Rosemary felt confident enough about her developing garden and skills to begin to write short articles for The Countryman. This was not a garden magazine per se, but a quarterly publication devoted to the issues surrounding rural life. The Countryman describes itself as “A Quarterly non-party review and miscellany of rural life and work for the English Speaking World.” Published in Gloucestershire, The Countryman’s topics ranged from articles on birds, fishing, shooting, and decoys to advice for farmers, with a scattering of cartoons, often depicting oafish farmers.
Rosemary’s first writings appeared in 1968 in a two-part article entitled “A Garden Inheritance” in which she described Barnsley’s garden and its evolution. Crediting the influence of others and attending the Royal Horticultural Society shows at Vincent Square, she included practical advice along with her enthusiasm, noting how important it was to bear in mind the limey Cotswold soil. So began Rosemary’s regular writing for The Countryman. She first wrote a couple of articles on her own garden before becoming a regular contributor, with several others, to a section entitled “Hints from the Home Acre.” She usually wrote a short page or two on specific plant topics and how to grow them. She encouraged her readers to visit other gardens, as she had done herself when she began, and to keep notes of the plants coveted from a friend’s garden, ones that have long summer bloom, prove reliable in the English “unsummery summers,” require no staking, and prove to be good mixers.
Rosemary always took notes herself and encouraged her readers to do the same. “Good plant associations play a vital part in achieving a successful garden and creating them is a constant fascination. If you have kept an eye open for effective combinations in other people’s gardens and remembered to make a note of them.” She also used her eyes. “I have cut a stalk of ceanothus and carried it round the garden to find other good combinations.”23
By 1970, Rosemary had her first article published in the prestigious magazine Country Life, writing about the fruits and flowers of Nassau after she and David had taken a trip there. Here, again, she followed David, for he had an article published in the magazine a year before and would have several more in 1970, 1971, and 1973 about historic churches, the Georgian buildings of Nassau, and related architectural topics. Her first article was a complement to David’s; she’d have to wait nine years for a second appearance. But by that time, she wrote on her own.
In that same year of 1970, Rosemary turned fifty-two and opened her garden to the public for the first time. It was only for a single day as part of the National Gardens Scheme, but it was a start.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sharpening Her Art 1970s
It would be awful not to be wanted.
AS IS TRUE of any personal garden, Rosemary’s would evolve over time. At the start of the 1970s, the core of her garden was in place and maturing, but Rosemary would add some of its most distinctive features over the next decade, sharpening and refining her art. Drawing from her personal library of old herbals and garden books and her strong interest in garden history, she decided to add a knot garden, followed by an herb garden, and finally her influential
