Book review: The Bad Tempered Gardener

The Bad Tempered Gardener
By Anne Wareham

British garden writer and designer, and creator of the highly original Veddw House Garden in rural Wales, Anne Wareham has 20 years of material to draw upon for this exposé of the gardening world. Written with acerbic wit, strong-voiced opinions and hard-earned experience, The Bad Tempered Gardener doesn’t pull any punches in challenging the status quo in garden design, garden advice and garden media. 

The different subjects are divided into short, very easy-to-read essays. They range from plants, garden design, gardeners and garden media to Anne’s personal challenges in designing, creating and maintaining her own large rural property on a shoestring.

Part gardening book, part autobiography, Anne relates her own struggles of feeling like an outsider in the gardening world. It also shares her authentic experience as a gardener and designer as a contrast to the rosy view promoted by garden media.

What makes this book unique
It’s one of the few books that analyzes and critiques all aspects of the gardening world. Wareham challenges us not only to create thoughtful, well-designed gardens, but also “to encourage a healthy scepticism and spirit of enquiry” about the gardening advice we read and hear… including her own.

Price: $27.95
Publisher: Francis Lincoln Limited

Anne Wareham’s websites

• Veddw House Garden
• The goal of the thinkinGardens Group—with the support of the Royal Horticultural Society—is to encourage and develop a broader, more enquiring attitude to gardens.

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