Remembering Rosemary Verey

Rosemary Verey, legendary gardener, prolific and influential writer, popular lecturer, and deft designer, died May 31 of pneumonia. She was 82.

by Ruth Lively (June 8, 2001)

 
The conservatory at Barnsley House, Rosemary Verey's garden near Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, England.
A self-trained gardener, Mrs. Verey had a marvelous eye for color, for lines, and for textures. I first became aware of her when The Englishwoman's Garden was published in 1980. On the book's cover was a photograph of the famous laburnum walk, and her garden at Barnsley House was among the many in this fascinating collection of essays by the gardeners themselves. Apparently this contribution was her entree into garden writing. She went on to write and edit numerous garden books. Among the best are The Flower Arranger's Garden, The Garden in Winter, A Countrywoman's Year, and Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden, which tells the story of how she and her husband, architectural historian David Verey, developed the gardens at Barnsley House.

I first met Rosemary Verey in the mid-1980s, at a dinner party in Kansas City. She was touring American gardens, researching for her book The American Woman's Garden. The garden of my friends, sisters Virginia and Sarah Weatherly, was on her agenda (and later was one of the gardens profiled in the book). I remember being a little daunted to meet a famous gardener and one of my heroines, but Mrs. Verey was entirely down to earth and approachable. When she learned my husband and I were planning a trip to England a couple of months later, she immediately invited us to visit Barnsley House, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire.

The visit to Barnsley House was a dream fulfilled. We wandered the garden for hours, studying plants, taking notes and photographs, sitting and drinking it all in. After visiting hours, when the gates were locked, we retired to her roomy kitchen for tea, where Rosemary -- by this time we were on a first-name basis -- put the kettle on and handed me a tin, saying "Put out some biscuits, won't you, dear?" I felt entirely at home, and wished never to leave.

Although the entire garden was inspiring, my favorite part was the decorative kitchen garden, with its patterned plantings and whimsically trained fruit trees. I'd seen photos of the potager at Villandry, one of the inspirations for this little garden, but compared to that massive French potager, the kitchen garden at Barnsley House was pretty rather than grand, friendly rather than sterile. I do think that Rosemary Verey is largely responsible for the popularity of attractive vegetable gardens, and for emboldening home gardeners to bring their kitchen gardens out from behind the garage to take pride of place in the landscape.
Americans loved Rosemary Verey's open friendliness, and she seemed to like us, too. She made frequent trips to the U. S. to lecture and was in demand as a garden designer here. She loved keeping up with what was going on in American gardening. She was a devoted subscriber to Kitchen Gardener. It meant much to us that, upon learning Taunton was going to cease publishing Kitchen Gardener, Rosemary Verey took the time to write us a cheery postcard to say how much she had enjoyed the magazine and that she was going to miss it. In fact, it is we who will miss her.

For more information about Rosemary Verey and the gardens at Barnsley House, go to www.opengarden.co.uk.

Ruth Lively is Senior Editor, Taunton New Media.
Postcard photo: Erika R. Shank


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