Gardening

Were she alive, Edna Walling would probably be delighted to know that another of her books has been reissued. She might also be astonished and just a little peeved. After a brilliant career as a garden designer, columnist and author – as well as photographer, cottage designer and ardent protector of the natural landscape – Walling’s fame had all but faded by the time she died in 1973 at the age of seventy-seven. Few noticed her passing. However, her renaissance began in the early 1980s, with new editions of selected works and with Peter Watts’s widely praised The Gardens of Edna Walling. Many more such publications followed.

This is an attractive book with its colourful dust jacket, clear type and layout, and delicate line drawings of individual herbs. The body of the book is an alphabetically arranged treatment of forty-two herbs, giving growing requirements, history, how to harvest and store and uses in medicine, toiletry and cooking. The recipes are original and include such interesting combinations as Pork au Santolina (which I tried and found worthy of a dinner party), and Lavender Beef.