English country gardens

Press, 28 February 1981, Page 17

English country gardens

Flowers of the Countryside. By Phillip and Marjorie Blarney. Illustrations by Marjorie Blarney. Collins. 1980. 223 pp. $24.95. (Reviewed by Thelma Strongman) What delightful and fulfilling sclfindulgence it must be for a husband and wife team to have worked together on a project like this book. Marjorie and Phillip Blarney began their lives together running a small farm in Cornwall. In 1966. alter a gap of over 30 years. Marjorie Blarney began painting again. The prolificoutput of her subsequent success as a botanical illustrator led to Phillip Blamev managing the business side of the work and deepening his own interest in conservation. When they gave up farming. Marjorie and Phillip Blamev designed*their new garden as a controlled habitat for wild flowers. "Flowers of the Countryside" is a celebration of their work together. This book is a true pot-pourri of things to do with wild flowers, ranging from their structure and function, historical use. first illustrators: natural habitats, poisonous and "mechanical" plants, and their use in traditional countryside pastimes, in painting and photography, and in the creation of a wild flower garden. At the end of the book is a generous selection of Marjorie Blarney's flower portraits, supported by historical information on each flower. The over-all impression of the book is one of excellence, both in illustration and layout. Marjorie Blarney’s chapter on flower painting is most interesting, particularly the section on colour sense, where she links flower colour tones with the light of the changing seasons and the soft landscape of Britain. "Pale blue skies and grey rain clouds, soft sunlight, earth browns and spring greens suit our

country." and "Flower colours brighten as summer advances, but so do the skies, and leaves darken to act as toils." In New Zealand’s bright light one would need at least a passing experience of the .English countryside to experience fully the ambience suggested by the book. Although equally beautiful individually, neither New Zealand native flowers iwith the possible exception of those alpine meadows’i nor indeed imported wayside weeds, are able to parallel flowers of the British countryside: they are not as colourful or as various, nor are they absorbed deeply into the culture as they are in Britain Although wild flowers can be grown in New Zealand, their status within the English countryside cannot be duplicated. Ursula Bethell, the New Zealand poet who spent many years in Britain, reflects this in her poem "Primavera. " She speaks of primroses growing in her Cashmere garden: Not the current com. primroses, but a foreign token. The wonted word out of the past that we never hear spoken Comb, coppice, spinney, aye. and primrose wood. Not understood, dale and meadow, not understood. As far as possible. Marjorie and Phillip Blarney are able to re-create these moods and "movements" of the British countryside, and this is the real strength of their book. What relevance would such a book have in New Zealand? It could elicit delicious feelings of nostalgia for the expatriate country person and would be of much interest to the botanical illustrator, conservationist, student of Eng. Lit., gardener, anglophile or indeed to anyone who simply appreciates ownin" a beautiful book.