Book review: Merry Hall

I'm a great lover of used book stores, and a while back I picked up a copy of Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols.

Now I'm totally entrance, and shall have to track down all his other gardening books.

This isn't a gardening book in the sense of a book of facts and information about gardens, rather it is a rambling, gossipy story of one man's garden. Nichols was a celebrity author of post-war Britian, and his enthusiatic account of creating his garden at Merry Hall is a delightful romp through the joys and frustrations of gardening, complete with stories of his crusty gardener Oldfield, his miraculously efficient valet Gaskin (think Lord Peter Wimsey's Bunter or Bertie Wooster's Jeeves and you get the idea), his prying neighbors Emily and Rose who object to every change he makes to the garden.

Anyone who gardens will love his accounts of returning from vacations with luggage stuffed with plants and his hilarious account of trying to pocket the huge, sticky seed of an avocado at a formal dinner without anyone noticing. Other stories will have you jumping up to buy plants.

"That was the moment when I first saw the lilies. They stood in rows of glistening white down the whole length of one side of the kitchen garden. A faint breeze was stirring, and as they nodded their heads there drifted towards us the most exquisite fragrance. Never before, in any garden of the world, have I seen such lilies; their loveliness was literally dazzling; the massed array of the white blossom was like sunlite show."

Running out to buy lily bulbs yet?

How about these two quotes on planting bulbs:

"Every Autumn, when the new bulbs arrive, a proportion of them are handed out to any friends who may be around so that they may plant them in some secret place, where I can have the fun of discovering them in the spring."
And:
"As we all know, the only way to plant daffodils is to pile them on to a tray, and then run to the orchard and hurl the tray into the air, planting them exactly where they fall. There may be other, less orthodox methods; if so they should be spurned. The tray, the ecstatic gesture... that is the only sure road to success."

I'm going to have to go buy more bulbs! I love the idea of hidden troves of spring flowers to be discovered, and the joyful image of hurling daffodils into the air and planting them where they fall! How have I never done this before?

All of which points to the very great truth of this final quote from the book:
"An important truth about the gardener's life as opposed to the lives of other people: the fact that each new year is, ipso facto, most startling and more rich in beauty than the one that preceded it."

"Bathe" in forest air

My last post got me thinking... every garden knows that plants make them feel better, but I wondered if there was an scientific research on the subject?

Turns out there is lots, and being around green spaces and plants is decidedly good for you:
It reduces stress related illness , reduce depression -- and the positive effects of living around parks it not just due to the increased exercise as this study found that even controlling for increased exercise, people living around lots of green spaces still have better mental health.

Usually reading scientific studies is fairly dry, but in the study I link to above on reducing depression (by a Japanese group of researchers) includes a perfectly wonderful Japanese phrase: Shinrin-yoku,  which they translate as "forest air bathing" -- it is an awkward translation, but much people sun bath at the beach, you can also "bath" in the rich, restorative atmosphere of a forest. I've always loved the peace and beauty of woods, but I never thought of it was bathing before... What a lovely image! I'm going to have to go forest bathing this weekend.

The power of gardens

I really think there is something pretty powerful about gardens and greenspaces that can have a big impact on how people live their lives and look at the world.

Another bit of evidence here: A neighborhood in that most down-and-out cities, Flint MI, transformed as people take vacant, weedy lots and start making gardens.