At a young age Natasha Spender came into contact with the renowned gardens of such literary figures as Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Harold Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West, and Michael Astor. In the 1960s she and her husband, the poet Sir Stephen Spender, acquired the ruins of a farmhouse enclosed in the dramatic skyline of the Alpilles. After years of hard work the result was a unique garden. Lady Spender’s gardening friendships with the locals and neighbours, the regular and inspiring visits of friends such as John Bayley and Iris Murdoch, Francis Bacon and the Annans, her explorations of the surrounding landscape, and passages from Stephen Spender’s unpublished journals, all contribute to this enchanting book. It is both a record of the creation of a beautiful garden in the arid hills of Provence, and a treasure trove for devoted gardeners.
