Gardens Of Illusion

Peter Matthews & Sara Maitland

Editions

Review

The combination of high quality, unusual images and a well-written, lucid text make this one of the most thought-provoking garden books for a long time.

Novelist Sara Maitland has joined forces with garden designer Peter Matthews to introduce us to a selection of locations which illustrate the subtitle of the work as “places of wit and enchantment”.  Their aim is to reintroduce humour, style and visual contrivance to our gardens to achieve effects that will tease perspectives and expand the usual parameters associated within the horticultural procedures of the 20th century, as well as to encourage us to use a more adventurous range of materials to enhance our environment.

Most of the themes they consider are variations of exemplars from the past; the “view-borrowing” in a ravishing garden in Lancashire is clearly prompted by the Chinese model, the great gargoyle in Austria is an update on Bomarzo, and Ivan Hicks shamelessly reinvents Dali for his own Surrealist visions.  The authors’ enthusiasm is sure however to inspire many contemporary practitioners to a greater wealth of responses in their surroundings.  There is already the germ of a project to enliven a copse in my own garden. - review by Stewart Grimshaw