Stop And Smell The Pages

Romantic, thoughtful and practical, this part-diary, part-handbook on fragrant planting is one of the best gardening books John Hoyland has read for years

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Gardening/autobiography

Scent Magic

Isabel Bannerman (Pimpernel Press, £30)

JULIAN and Isabel Bannerman are garden-makers responsible for some of the most innovative and extravagantly theatrical designs of the past 30 years. The couple conjure with temples, bridges, pillars and obelisks (crafted from wood rather than stone) to create gardens that feel as if they have long been a part of the landscape. The plantings are sumptuous, relaxed and romantic.

At Woolbeding and Arundel Castle in West Sussex, the stumpery at Highgrove, Gloucestershire, and numerous other sites, they have designed gardens to linger in, enticing us to pause. For many, they are the most creative and singular designers working in Britain today.

Following the success of their book Landscape of Dreams, which explores the roots of their shared aesthetic and describes many of their creations, Isabel has now produced a book that is, on the surface, about scented plants. In fact, it is, in part, a diary of her gardening year—filled with advice about, among other things, scented plants—and, in part, an autobiography of a rich life spent ‘jostling with children, work, houses and gardens’.

Finding the right words to describe the scent is a challenge, particularly as we all experience it in our own way. There have been many other books on scented planting. Isabel’s own copies are well-thumbed and she is generous in acknowledging their importance, ‘but none of them told me how it “feels” to smell Matthiola incana after a shower in April’.