Monty Don, Britain’s treasured horticulturalist, and renowned photographer Derry Moore explore iconic and little-known gardens throughout America in a magnificent new book
For years, Britain’s much-loved gardener Monty Don has been leading us down all kinds of garden paths to show us why green spaces are vital to our wellbeing and culture. Now, he travels across America with celebrated photographer Derry Moore to trace the fascinating histories of outdoor spaces which epitomise or redefine the American garden.
In this book, which complements a BBC television series, the pair look at a variety of gardens and outdoor spaces at the centre of American history including the slave garden at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate, Longwood Gardens in Delaware, and Middleton Place in South Carolina.
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Together Monty and Derry Moore visit verdant oases designed by modernist architects such as Richard Neutra, they delve into urban outdoor spaces, looking at New York City’s Central Park, Lurie Garden at the southern end of Millennium Park in Chicago, and the Seattle Spheres.
Unique perspective
Derry Moore gives his unique perspective on gardens across the United States, including several not featured in the TV series. These include unpublished photographs of Bob Hope’s Palm Springs home and garden of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
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Featuring luscious photography and Monty Don’s engaging commentary, this book will leave you with a richer understanding of how America’s most important gardens came to be designed.
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MONTY DON OBE is the UK’s leading garden writer and broadcaster. He has been making television programmes for over twenty years on a range of topics, spanning travel, craft, outdoor living and, principally, gardening. He has been lead presenter of the BBC’s Gardener’s World since 2003 and since 2011 the programme has come from his own garden, Longmeadow, in Herefordshire.
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Monty has also made acclaimed prime time series such as Around the World in 80 Gardens, Monty Don’s Italian Gardens, Monty Don’s French Gardens, The Secret History of the British Garden, Monty Don’s Paradise Gardens , Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens and three series of Big Dreams, Small Spaces.
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DERRY MOORE’s photographs have been reproduced in numerous magazines including Architectural Digest, Vogue, Town and Country, Men’s Vogue and Nest. He has published over 12 books including An English Room, Great English Interiors, and London’s Great Theatres (all by Prestel).
Another era
His work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and The National Portrait Gallery, London, which has 38 of his portraits in their collection. In 2005, Derry Moore’s portraiture was the focus of a small retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery, which featured his photographs of Helena Bonham Carter, John Gielgud, Rudolf Nureyev, Alan Bennett, David Bowie and the late Princess of Wales, amongst others.
He attended Oscar Kokoschka’s School of Seeing in Salzburg, (Die Schule des Sehens), which he says “opened his eyes”. Later, when living in New York, he came became a pupil of Bill Brandt. He has worked in Europe, America, Australia and India, a country that he first visited as a photographer in 1976 and where he photographed some of the palaces and people that seemed to him to have retained the atmosphere of another era and were in danger of disappearing.
AMERICAN GARDENS: MONTY DON & DERRY MOORE
Published 22nd September 2020
Hardback, RRP £35.00
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