A Star on the Wane

Barbara Paul Robinson
A Book Talk
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
New York Horticultural Society

Rosemary Verey

Barbara Paul Robinson spent one month interning with Rosemary Verey at Barnsley House in 1991.  For the next 20 years, she called Verey every Sunday.  That's what I call staying in touch.  I wondered how many gardeners are still "in touch" with Verey's style.

Robinson began her talk by quoting Verey, "It's a sin to be dull" and Robinson held out the hope that she like Verey would not be.  Robinson was as charming as her mentor.  But no amount of wit and humor, could convince me that Verey's legacy is one we can learn from.

Three years ago, I spent three months in the UK on my own kind of apprenticeship at two famous gardens.  I made a list of must see gardens to visit, before I left.  Barnsley House, Verey's garden, was not on my list.  As it turned out, Barnsley House was on the road to another more important garden, so I made a turn off the main road and pulled into the car park at Verey's house.

Sitting on the terrace, in the now high-end hotel that Barnsley House has become, on a sunny day,  with a cup of excellent tea in my hand,  I looked around at Verey's garden.  I had a feeling that the plantings were only a shadow of the garden that Verey had created and become famous for.  Robinson confirmed this. Showing slides of Verey's garden in its heyday, Robinson expounded on its features and the distinctly human scale of the garden.  This was not a palace or a castle. It was a garden of tasteful perennials,  formal walks, architectural features and its world-famous potager.

Verey's star started to wane in the nineties.  However, she remained famous in America until the end of her life. Robinson explained this phenomenon with a quote from Dan Hinkley,  "Rosemary Verey fortified our self-esteem."  Two days before I came back to the states from my UK garden adventure, I swore I would never deadhead another plant as long as I lived.  I have embraced the American love for watching the demise of all things horticultural.

Grand, but not Grandoise: Barnsley House - Rosemary Verey

GRAND,
but not Grandoise

Barnsley House

ROSEMARY VEREY

Sustainable Gardening Fellowship

Royal Oak Foundation

June, July, August 2010

I started out visiting the gardens at castles, palaces, manors, but not houses.  When I realized that Rosemary Verey's home was practically down the street from Hidcote, I made an appointment to visit the garden.  The house and garden are now a luxury hotel and not open to the public.

Even though the Brits can say SORRY like no one else in the world, the woman on the other end of the telephone was especially cheery and said "come on over." 

Verey is one of those horticultural ladies who did everything:  garden designer, writer and broadcaster.  She was a well-known and well-respected fixture in the gardening world for years.  She has been on my radar, but not at the top of my list.  After viewing larger and larger properties, I knew it would be a relief to see a garden which would not require a fold-out map.  A garden that was part of a home.  A garden created in the late 20th century and a garden that was a reinterpretation of a grand tradition of gardening making.  I wasn't disappointed.

I have no one way of knowing whether or not the garden at Barnsley House is exactly how Rosemary Verey designed it.  If once it became a hotel, aspects of the garden were changed.  Still, I felt the garden was pretty much intact and certainly very close to what Verey designed.  I loved the intimate scale.  Below is the only "feature."  A small pool with pavillion, which existed on the property when Verey came to live at Barnsley House.

Most of the garden is a mixture of herbaceous plants combined with clipped boxwood, but low.  They are no 10 ft. tall hedges of any kind.  You can wander around the garden, notice the plant combinations and see the beginning and THE END.

And you think to yourself, I like that combination.  I could do that.  It's do-able.  I scribbled a few things down. And that's the point.  It's a garden made by one good gardener, kind of like you and me.