“Rosemary Verey” is an irresistible biography of a horticultural sage

People sometimes ask reviewers how they happen to choose the books they write about. In this case, the answer is easy: The picture on the cover of “Rosemary Verey: The Life and Lessons of a Legendary Gardener” was so lushly, ravishingly gorgeous that I couldn’t resist picking up the book. I subsequently learned that the Laburnum Walk at Barnsley was, according to its frequent photographer Jerry Harpur, perhaps “the most famous view of any garden anywhere in the world.”

Another reason I was drawn to this book is far more personal. I hoped that it would inspire me to become a more active gardener. Verey (1918-2001), as her biographer Barbara Paul Robinson says, “made beautiful gardens seem possible to the average homeowner. Her message was that you, too, could do this if you tried.” Built in 1697, Barnsley House certainly looks grand, but its surrounding property amounts to less than four acres, though — as the color plates in this book reveal — every foot of its soil has been deployed for banks of flowers, graveled walks, horticultural ornaments (a fountain and sundial, statuary), formally precise plantings and even a potager (an elegant French term for a vegetable plot).

More from Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post Book World and the author of the memoir “An Open Book” and of four collections of essays: “Readings,” “Bound to Please,” “Book by Book” and “Classics for Pleasure.”

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(Godine) - ‘Rosemary Verey: The Life and Lessons of a Legendary Gardener’ by Barbara Paul Robinson.

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Unfortunately, Robinson quickly convinced me that I might learn from Verey, but that I could never aspire to anything remotely like her gardens. She employed two full-time workmen, as well as regular interns and occasional casual labor (including, for a short time, Robinson). Most homeowners can devote, at best, a few hours a week or perhaps a Saturday afternoon to the maintenance of their lawns and flowers. Verey’s designs — often geometrical and exceptionally tidy — were labor-intensive. Plants were dead-headed every morning, rotated in and out as the seasons changed, constantly paid attention to.

It’s little wonder that Verey’s clients were nearly all well-to-do and often aristocratic — and, in some cases, even royal. Prince Charles, who became a friend, invited Verey to help with the gardens on his estate at Highgrove. King Hussein and Queen Noor also employed her talents, along with Elton John, some Kentucky horse-breeders and similar happy folk who aren’t likely to be loading their Prius hatchback with bags of mulch from Home Depot.

Robinson stresses that Verey wasn’t an aristocrat herself, though her early life was certainly privileged: a childhood in the country centered on horseback riding, a madcap debutante season, early marriage to a dashing military officer who, after World War II, became a noted architectural historian, four children (all cared for by a nanny), a married life revolving around the local hunt, tennis matches and dinner parties, some possible love affairs and active involvement with the local church. Such was Verey’s highly traditional, upper-class existence well into her middle years when she and her husband, David, began to develop the Barnsley estate.

Throughout Robinson’s biography, David is depicted as shy, courteous and impractical, more friend than spouse, alternately advancing and retarding the gradual blossoming of his wife’s horticultural genius. In fact, David — author of the Gloucestershire volumes in Nikolaus Pevsner’s “Buildings of England” and the founder of a local museum — comes across as a far more attractive human being than steely, perfectionist Rosemary. When he died in 1984, he left serious debts and thus gave his widow a stark financial reason to make the transition from gifted amateur gardener to full-time horticultural sage.