Agatha Christie, Sackville-West and Gardens

Garden and Household
bric-a-brac

 I'm listening to Agatha Christie's Postern of Fate, one of my favorite Tommy and Tuppence mysteries. In this novel, the last that Christie wrote, Tommy and Tuppence are retired and have moved to the suburbs as we call them here in the US, and are remodeling and settling into the house and garden.

The story opens with Tuppence trying to organize her collection of books. I can sympathize with her. I've got loads of books and I'm always trying to figure out the best place and way to organize them. Down in the family room I've placed a large dining room hutch purchased at a second hand store which serves as a bookcase. There I have the fiction books. Upstairs the bookcase in "the office" contains the non-fiction and "work" books - science: biology, chemistry, and ecology. The hallway bookcase contains more fiction books, and the some of the kid's books that didn't fit on their bookcases. In my bedroom I have a small shelf devoted to what I consider inspirational books, and the current bedtime reading is stacked on the bedside table.

Tommy and Tuppence have their faithful henchmen Albert with them and an even more aged gardener, "Old Isaac" helping them. In the passage I'm writing about Tuppence and Isaac are burrowing through a box of tulips that have been ordered and planning how to plant them so as to make the best effect. This made my mind immediately jump to the section of Vita Sackville-West's, In Your Garden, that I have currently on the bedside table for gentle reading to settle me down for a good night's rest. She advised her readers on the best varieties of bulbs to purchase, their color, price, and seller.

Hutch filled with vintage
silver and odds and ends

Now I love tulips and their vast variety of size, color, and shape, unfortunately, so do the white-tail deer that inhabit the woods that surround my yard. I tried planting tulips the first Fall we lived here and in the Spring they dutifully came up and were promptly eaten. I was heartbroken. I did my research and discovered that daffodils were poisonous and deer resistant and I decided to invest in them. It turns out that Brecks has a wide variety of daffodils not just your average yellow ones. They have managed to bloom and double over the years. Still wish I could have tulips to brighten my springtime garden, but I buy some to place in the house, safe from Bambi.

The Manor House Garden

One garden room at Hidcote Manor picture taken on my vacation 

Agatha Christie and many of my other favorite authors have written about the weekend house party at someone's manor house and there is always a scene when someone invites someone else out for a stroll in the garden. Once out in the garden there might be the "important talk", a dalliance, or even a murder. It didn't really make much sense to me to go for a walk in the garden because I was picturing my garden, but once I had been to England to see what a real manor house garden looks like it began to make all the more difference to my reading.

Gardening is serious business over there in England. Many of the gardens that I visited are even larger than my entire plot of land (1.67 acres). They employed designers and architects and engaged and maintained a staff. When Hercule Poirot is interviewing the gardener, this character was a full time employee with perhaps a "boy" or two working for him. Here I am, just me beavering away at my attempt at a cottage garden and a small vegetable plot. I've had to take a week off due to the rain and an aching back and the weeds have gone rampant from my neglect.

In researching about famous English gardeners I came across Vita Sackville-West, poet and novelist who funded her gardening passions with the proceeds from her literary career. She and her husband purchased Sissinghurst Castle and transformed the grounds, he did the architectural planning and she the plantings. I used the ever precious inter-library loan system to get a hold of a copy of her In Your Garden a collection of her articles written for The Observer during 1947-1950. Now I understand the inspiration that Katherine Swift had for her gardening column written 50 years later. I guess it is a testament to British gardeners that weekly gardening columns are still popular especially seeing the demise of the printed newspaper editions at least here in the US. I'm guilty of giving up the paper subscription when I found myself recycling stacks of them unread. There is always so much more good reading material than the morning paper.

I'm wandering just like one would along the crazy brick paths of a manor house garden. On January 22, 1950, Sackville-West wrote of her plan to design a garden with a single color scheme. She was envisioning a garden of just white blossoms against a backdrop of green and grey foliage. Of course this garden came to fruition as one for which she is famous.