- Europe north of the Alps is extremely rich in worthy gardens, so Monty makes a personal choice of one he's dying to see either the first time or again, representing a broad spectrum. In England, Oxfordshire's Rousham landscape park, all about wide spaces and green, contrasts gloriously with Kent's borders paradise Sissinghurst. In France, the Loire château Andreville's enormous geometrical garden is balanced by Monet's flower beds and waterlily ponds. In Antwerp, landscape architect Jacques Wirtz privately enjoys his 'stock nursery'. In Holland, stadholder and later English king William's royal castle Het Loo's forest-conquered model of Duch husbandry is countered by a modern designer's focus on durability. Finally to Norway's Tromsoö island botanical garden of Alpine plants, a surprisingly abundant summer paradise thanks to the Gulf stream.—KGF Vissers
- Monty admits in his travel through Northern Europe that he had to whittle his list of gardens to a manageable number, thus going on the very personal criteria of those he has always longed to see, and revisiting past favorites, all the while highlighting how these gardens maintain their history but not turn their back on change over time. The two British gardens he visits fall into the latter of past favorites as arguably the two which he admires the most, not only in British garden design, but perhaps worldwide, while those farther afield fall into the former of lifelong dreams to see. He finds that the gardens are a product of their time and place, largely taking from past eras and putting a local and somewhat modern spin on them, modern as to the actual era of the garden construction. He also finds that especially the gardens he visits in France are an extension of or an inspiration for art, again of the era. He concludes his trip, which thus far has included gardens in Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, in a totally different vein in challenging his notion of how gardening can be done by heading to northern Norway, two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, where gardeners have to deal with the extremes of light and dark, and hot and cold over the course of a year.—Huggo
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