Making a garden on a Greek Hillside

The hillsides of Attica are stony and arid. Over-grazed in the past by goats and sheep, they have few trees and are covered in dense, prickly scrub. Relentless sun and often strong winds prevail for five months of the year, but in the autumn and spring months the miracle of the extraordinary variety and beauty of the Greek flora is revealed to the discerning eye. It was on such a hillside that the English woman Jaqueline Tyrwhitt — Harvard University professor, town planner of international renown and amateur botanist — chose to make a garden. This book is the story of the making of that garden and a distillation of what she learnt and observed about the plants that grew there, a book which she wrote (to use her own words) 'to assist other people wishing to make gardens in places with a "Mediterranean climate", believing that anything that grew under the difficult conditions prevailing on this Greek hillside would be almost certain to grow better elsewhere.' The garden that she created was different from most other Greek gardens at that time, in the 70s and 80s, for in addition to cultivated garden plants she wanted to include in it, and to sustain, encourage and introduce in the surrounding hillside, as much native Greek flora as she could. This book describes month by month the plants that grew, thrived or merely survived there, and her vivid descriptions of those plants reveal a great sensitivity to the delicate beauty of the natural world combined with a plantswoman's integrity. With an equally sensitive and observant eye she also describes the events and activities — the agricultural life, the feasts and festivals — of her neighbours and the nearby village.