The Gardener

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Naturally, as the economy starts to recover in May 1936, Lydia Grace informs her parents: "I saw Uncle Jim almost smile today. It seems to have an answer to all of life’s great questions and is also an incredible journey through the generations of different families. The story, about a young girl and her rooftop garden in the city, is set in the Depression era and told through an epistolary style. For all their apparently auspicious names – the obvious Halcyon and Haycroft, but also Phyllis and Peter from the Greek for “foliage” and “stone” – Hassie’s new friends, as it turns out, are “private people with their own private worlds”. T ea in a crowded mauve and blue striped wooden structure, with a false front, carried her still further into the nightmare.

The next shell uprooted and laid down over the body what had been the foundation of a barn wall, so neatly that none but an expert would have guessed that anything unpleasant had happened. He has written a weekly gardening column for the Daily Mail since 2004, and published over 20 books, including the bestsellers Down to Earth, Nigel: My Family and Other Dogs, and My Garden World. The first half of The Gardener is very much like the long, hot summer of 2020, in that virtually nothing happens.

The real reason was to escape from Robert, the married art dealer she still loves, and from her terrible grief at his having left her. Set in the present day, there was something about The Gardener that felt old fashioned and set in another time. We also sell books by other authors on the subject of horticulture or that related to other aspects of the estate. Most importantly she develops a better understanding and appreciation for herself and of her sister.

This might make the novel sound genteel and a little bit clichéd, and while Vickers does depict an idealised version of village life she does, occasionally, let the real world intrude — there’s a low level of social commentary in the storyline related to prejudice against immigrants, domestic violence and child poverty. Here, she feels sure, she will finally succeed in “wrench[ing] [her] life round into a new pattern, one in which Robert [is] no longer [her] sun and moon, the source of [her] light, [her] measure of the months and years. I’m a huge Salley Vickers fan having enjoyed two of her previous books, The Librarian and Grandmothers. Salley Vickers’ The Gardener is an easy-going, almost old-fashioned, story about a woman moving to the Shropshire countryside to begin a new life. I have written this book as an enthusiastic gardener for fellow enthusiasts and the aim is to jog memories, share plant stories and make you smile.While Margot continues her London life in high finance, Hassie is left alone to work the large, long-neglected garden. As she works the garden in Murat's peaceful company, Hassie ruminates on her past life: the sibling rivalry that tainted her childhood and the love affair that left her with painful, unanswered questions. One section of the garden was dedicated to raspberry canes, currant and gooseberry bushes and tangled blackberry brambles, which used to make into strange potions while playing in the garden.