Review: The National Trust School of Gardening by Rebecca Bevan

I’ve been looking through ‘The National Trust School of Gardening’, a new ‘how to’ book.

Much of my gardening knowledge has come from asking experts – both professional gardeners and home gardeners who simply have years of experience. Learning from those ‘who do’ is always the best way to pick up ideas and tips.

Among the most knowledgeable are the National Trust’s more than 500 gardeners who between them care for plots that cover every imaginable style, size and location. Of course, visiting the gardens and asking the staff questions is a treat but now it’s possible to tap into that expertise without leaving home thanks to The National Trust School of Gardening.

Written by Rebecca Bevan, it’s a comprehensive guide to how to garden from choosing a style to what to plant and how to care for it.

Hidcote in Gloucestershire, one of the finest gardens in the world, is cared for by the National Trust. Image credit NTI_Andrew Lawson

Every aspect of gardening is covered with chapters as wide-ranging as how to grow roses, raising cut flowers, using bedding plants, and growing under glass, with a different National Trust garden used as a case study for each subject.

Packwood House, in Warwickshire, shows how a repeated planting scheme helps to unify long, double borders. Sissinghurst is a lesson in using climbers to cover walls and create an air of romance, while the gardeners at The Courts Garden, in Wiltshire, are experts in everything to do with topiary.

The garden at Hill Top in Cumbria retains the look and feel it had when Beatrix Potter lived there. Image credit NTI_Val Corbett

Each topic has an overview giving its history so we’re told that– pinks, sweet Williams and snapdragons have been grown as cut flowers since the 16^th century, and that the word lawn comes from the medieval worde launde, which means an open grassy glade in woodland. There are explanations of gardening terms: the difference between a shrub and a tree; the different types of roses; what herbaceous perennial means.

And there’s masses of advice from crop rotation and how to draw a garden plan, to moving shrubs and identifying common weeds. It’s given in a clear but lively style – very readable but informative.

Cannas, pelargoniums and helichrysum in the entrance courtyard of Tintinhull, Somerset Image credit NTI_Andrew Butler

The text is broken up both by photographs and illustrations by Madeleine Smith and splitting the information into smaller sub-sections makes the book visually appealing.

In the introduction we’re told the book does not aim to give “rigid rules or unnecessary technical detail”. Instead, it hopes to “give you the inspiration and confidence to make the most of your garden”. While of interest to seasoned gardeners, it would be particularly useful to someone just starting out.

Soft blue Russian sage is combined with orange crocosmia and brightly coloured zinnias. Image credit NTI_Caroline Arber

The National Trust School of Gardening is published by National Trust Books with an RRP of £20. You can buy it here for £14.76. (Buying through this link means I receive a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.)

Top picture: The walls of the Rose Garden at Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent, are draped in climbers and wall shrubs. Image credit NTI_Jonathan Buckley

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