Let the Cavalcade of Gardens Begin

No better place to start than Tintinhull - A seventeenth century house with a Arts and Crafts garden. The Eagle Court is thought to have been made in the eighteenth century but the other garden compartments were made in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It has a distinct 'Golden Afternoon' flavour. (Unless you visit on a grey, overcast day as we did.) Captain and Mrs Reiss bought the house in 1933 and added the Pool Garden as a memorial to a nephew who was shot down over a Malta convoy during the Second World War. Penelope Hobhouse, author of Colour in Your Garden (1984) worked here from 1980 to 1993 and the garden is described by her in Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening (1994). - from gardenvisit.com
























The resume of Penelope Hobhouse is rich with gardening credentials including being a recipient of the Royal Horticultural Society Victoria Medal of Honour, the highest award given by the RHS to British Horticulturists.

We confess that before seeing her photograph we pictured Penelope in a big floppy garden hat and a filmy sundress sipping tea on the patio and browsing seed catalogs. However, reading her list of accomplishments and viewing her ruddy, suntanned visage, convinces us that she is more likely to be the one moving compost, digging holes, and shaping the yews rather than merely directing others to do so. We greatly admire a woman who is as capable of wielding a pruning shears as a pen.

Good show. Carry on Penelope.