If you can't join designer Carolyn Mullet on one of her European garden tours), then do the next best thing, and read her book, Adventures in Eden: An Intimate Tour of the Private Gardens of Europe (Timber Press, 2020).
Carolyn will take you to gardens in Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Spain, Italy, France, and more. The book is a tour of private gardens only open on occasion, designed by some of the best people in the business -- some likely familiar to you (Dan Pearson, Tom Stuart-Smith, Helen Dillon), but others you've never heard of. Most of the gardens are very 21st century, so don't expect Versailles and Sissinghurst.
In Germany and the Netherlands, some of the plantings will remind you of Piet Oudolf. In Spain, challenging climates and natural, rugged landscapes come together with decomposed granite walls and decomposed granite paths and plazas, ornamental grasses and olive trees.
Each of the 50 entries includes an essay on the garden's history, the designers and/or owners, and the main features of the landscape. That's followed by three or four pages of gorgeous photos that perfectly illustrate the garden's main concepts. As Mullet says in the introduction, "I hope that readers will see the book as a somewhat idiosyncratic overview of the state of private garden design in Europe in the early twenty-first century, where size or status has had nothing to do with the choices, but passion, plantsmanship, and creativity has meant everything."
A great gift book, coffee table book, book for late-night reading.
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