Rosemary Verey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rosemary Verey OBE, VMH (21 December 1918 in Chatham, Kent-31 May 2001 in Cheltenham) was an internationally-known English garden designer, lecturer and prolific garden writer who designed the famous garden at Barnsley House, near Cirencester. She was born Rosemary Isabel Baird Sandilands and became Rosemary Verey in 1939 when she married David Verey.

Vereys' most famous garden design was that of her own house, Barnsley House near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. In 1970 she opened the garden for one day to the public for the NGS (National Gardens Scheme) but eventually it was open 6 days per week to accommodate the 30,000 annual visitors. In 1984 when her husband David died, Rosemary began designing gardens for American and British clients. Most notable are HRH the Prince of Wales, and Sir Elton John, Princess Michael of Kent, the Marquess of Bute and the New York Botanic Garden.

Rosemary Verey was well known for taking imposing elements from large public gardens and bringing them into scale for the home gardeners use. Her laburnum walk, which has been photographed many, many times, is an example of this technique. The National Trust's Bodnant Garden in North Wales has a very large laburnum walk that inspired Verey to plant a similar, smaller scale laburnum walk at Barnsley House. Verey is also noted for making vegetable (ornamental potager) gardens fashionable once again. The potager at Barnsley House was inspired by that at Villandry, on the Loire in France.

She was awarded the OBE in 1996 and in 1999 from the Royal Horticultural Society the highest accolade that Society can award, the Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH)

[edit] Books

• The Englishwoman's Garden . Chatto and Windus, 1980. Hardcover: ISBN 0701123958

• The Scented Garden. Marshall Editions 1981. Hardcover: ISBN 0718120507

• Classic Garden Design: Adapting and Recreating Garden Features of the Past . Viking , 1984. Hardcover: ISBN 0670800635

• The New Englishwoman's Garden . Also authored by Alvilde Lees-Milne. Chatto and Windus , 1987. Hardcover: ISBN 0701132736

• THE FLOWER ARRANGERS GARDEN . GUILD, 1989. Hardcover: ASIN: B000S99LOY

• Good Planting. Frances Lincoln Publishers , 1990. Hardcover: ISBN 0711206066

• A Countrywoman's Notes. Foreword by HRH Charles, Prince of Wales. London: Frances Lincoln, 1993. Miniature edition. Hardcover: ISBN 0-711-20888-3, ISBN 978-0-71120-888-9.

• Rosemary Verey's Good Planting Plans. Little Brown and Company , 1993. Hardcover: ISBN 0316899828

• Secret Gardens: Revealed by Their Owners Chosen and Edited by Rosemary Verey.Bulfinch Press , 1994. Hardcover: ISBN 0821220748

• Rosemary Verey's English Country Gardens . Henry Holt & Co , 1996. Hardcover: ISBN 0805050809

• The English Country Garden . BBC Books , 1996. Hardcover: ISBN 056338705X

• Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden. Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2001. Photographs by Tony Lord. Plans rendered in watercolour by Hilary Wills. New York: Paperback: ISBN 0711217912

• The Garden in Winter. Frances Lincoln Publishers,2002. Paperback ISBN 0711220204