Gravetye head gardener Tom Coward has written a new introduction for the facsimile, with an afterword by owners Elizabeth and Jeremy Hosking.
Graham Stuart Thomas, the subject of a forthcoming biography by Charles Quest-Ritson, wrote an introduction for the 1984 edition. Old editions can be worth three figures, hence the 2024 reprint.
Coward writes about how Robinson recorded his garden creation efforts from 1885-1907. Joy, tenacity, detail and charm epitomise the work, then as now, in the book and the garden.
Robinson rose from being an Irish famine refugee to working as a gardener from the age of 10, taking off when he began at Regent's Park in 1861.
Much study and travel followed, and Robinson developed a style the opposite of formal High Victorian gardens, advocating a more natural, wilder look of hardy perennials, shrubs, and climbers.
By 1885, he left London and bought Gravetye in West Sussex. This book describes how he made a garden there.
The facsimile reminds me of old Gardeners' Chronicles (HortWeek's forerunner) from the 19th century. There's an old school delight within the big heavy covers and thick, densely printed pages.
Coward has renovated the garden since 2010. The legacy lives on, both with this beautiful edition, and in the garden.
