Aspiration. Aspiration. Aspir- ation is still the watchword for publishers of gardening books. How many heavy, glossy productions filled with Get-the- Look pictures does the average gardener need? Especially when what is always peddled and praised tends to emphasise the haute couture of horticulture. There is a fashionable tendency to over-intellectualise about design. This is not what gardening is about. If you want more of this argument log onto www.thehadspenparabola.com, a website for the competition to redesign the walled garden at Hadspen, where there is some good online reading to be had. Victoria Glendinning is down-to-earth: ‘This is all gardens-in-the-head, not about real gardens and still less about making a garden.’ Penelope Hobhouse reproves her son, who set up the site: ‘I think you, Niall, miss out on a lot by not digging, mulching, pruning . . . all the tasks which Victoria G. enjoys!’, but in her latest book Hobhouse provides another lofty overview of world horticulture.
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