Women Who Shaped Garden History
Somerset, England. The cottage garden created by Margery Fish from 1938 onward became a living encyclopedia of traditional plants and a model for the cottage garden style. It is now a Grade I listed garden.
Fish and her husband Walter bought the medieval manor house in 1937, and Margery spent the rest of her life creating and developing the garden. She filled it with traditional cottage garden plants — hardy geraniums, primroses, snowdrops, hellebores, pulmonarias, and scores of other perennials — arranged in an informal, naturalistic style that allowed plants to self-seed and intermingle.
Fish was deeply concerned that many traditional garden plants were being lost as gardening fashion shifted toward modern hybrids and bedding plants. She sought out old varieties from cottage gardens, nurseries, and fellow enthusiasts, propagated them, and made them available through her nursery. Many plants that might otherwise have been lost survive because of her collecting.
East Lambrook Manor is open to the public and maintains a nursery that continues Fish's tradition of offering unusual and traditional hardy plants. The garden is at its best from February through October and is recognized as a national collection of hardy geraniums.