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A Countrywoman's Year
A month-by-month chronicle of anecdotal observations on gardening and country living, with notes on spring rains, farm life, the summer's influx of bees, and gardener's tricks
117 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1991
6 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Rosemary Verey
44 books9 followersRosemary Verey, OBE, VMH was an internationally known English garden designer, lecturer and prolific garden writer who designed the famous garden at Barnsley House, near Cirencester.
She was born Rosemary Isabel Baird Sandilands and educated at Eversley School, Folkestone, and University College, London. In 1939 she married David Verey, whose family owned Barnsley House.
Verey's most famous garden design was that of her own house, Barnsley House near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. In 1970 she opened the garden for one day to the public for the National Gardens Scheme but eventually it was open 6 days per week to accommodate the 30,000 annual visitors. In 1984 when her husband David died, Rosemary began designing gardens for American and British clients. Most notable are HRH the Prince of Wales, Elton John, Princess Michael of Kent, the Marquess of Bute and the New York Botanical Garden.
Rosemary Verey was well known for taking imposing elements from large public gardens and bringing them into scale for the home gardeners use. Her laburnum walk, which has been photographed many times, is an example of this technique. The National Trust's Bodnant Garden in North Wales has a very large laburnum walk that inspired Verey to plant a similar, smaller scale laburnum walk at Barnsley House. Verey is also noted for making vegetable (ornamental potager) gardens fashionable once again. The potager at Barnsley House was inspired by that at Villandry, on the Loire in France.
She was awarded the OBE in 1996 and in 1999 from the Royal Horticultural Society the highest accolade that Society can award, the Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH).
She was born Rosemary Isabel Baird Sandilands and educated at Eversley School, Folkestone, and University College, London. In 1939 she married David Verey, whose family owned Barnsley House.
Verey's most famous garden design was that of her own house, Barnsley House near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. In 1970 she opened the garden for one day to the public for the National Gardens Scheme but eventually it was open 6 days per week to accommodate the 30,000 annual visitors. In 1984 when her husband David died, Rosemary began designing gardens for American and British clients. Most notable are HRH the Prince of Wales, Elton John, Princess Michael of Kent, the Marquess of Bute and the New York Botanical Garden.
Rosemary Verey was well known for taking imposing elements from large public gardens and bringing them into scale for the home gardeners use. Her laburnum walk, which has been photographed many times, is an example of this technique. The National Trust's Bodnant Garden in North Wales has a very large laburnum walk that inspired Verey to plant a similar, smaller scale laburnum walk at Barnsley House. Verey is also noted for making vegetable (ornamental potager) gardens fashionable once again. The potager at Barnsley House was inspired by that at Villandry, on the Loire in France.
She was awarded the OBE in 1996 and in 1999 from the Royal Horticultural Society the highest accolade that Society can award, the Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH).
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 9, 2025
This was really fun to read over a year’s time. The chapters are broken up into months so this was done easily - about five or six little sections a month.
The gardens, the English countryside, specific flowers and herbs - it was a pleasant agricultural read.
I’d recommend this book for your garden enthusiast!
Ages: 10 +
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The gardens, the English countryside, specific flowers and herbs - it was a pleasant agricultural read.
I’d recommend this book for your garden enthusiast!
Ages: 10 +
Content Considerations: nothing to note.
**Like my reviews? Then you should follow me! Because I have hundreds more just like this one. With each review, I provide Content Considerations, mentioning any objectionable content I come across so that parents and/or conscientious readers (like me) can determine beforehand whether they want to read a book or not. Content surprises are super annoying, especially when you’re 100+ pages in, so here’s my attempt to help you avoid that!
If you’re considering a book or looking for a new title to read, check out my highly categorized shelves, read my reviews and Friend or Follow me to spiff up your feed with clean, wholesome, living books.
I have an Instagram account that’s pretty bookishly unique too!
June 1, 2023
I'm not quite sure what to make of this book — whether it truly ripened from "middling" to "superb" about halfway through, as it seemed to do, or whether it took me half the book to learn how to read it.
It's composed of 12 chapters, one for each month, with a handful of page-long segments about various topics in each chapter. There is no thesis, and even the range of topics seemed surprisingly broad and disparate. Since the author was a famous gardener, I was expecting to bask in choice descriptions and well-wrought ruminations on nature, gardening, seasons, and so forth. And there is a good deal of that — discussions of hedges and verges and fields, drystone walls, bees in the roof, hedgehogs in the garden, resident birds and their habits, the joys of picnicking and apple harvesting — but also a good deal about visiting country houses (both in England and America), about village life (the church moneybox is stuck, the last postmistress hasn't been replaced), and about famous gardeners and landscapers from history.
The book presents a lovely potpourri, but its fault, I think, is that the components are too varied for you to get enough of a whiff of any one element. All the spring months slip by with scarcely a mention of the flowers blooming, or the work going on, in the garden. Instead we get, in May (for instance), brief essays on (1) a new authentic cheesemaking business in Gloucestershire, (2) the aforementioned bees in the roof, (3) the trees belonging to the author, (4) hedges, and (5) moles. All delightful topics, but are these really the most crucial to mention in May? I felt like the whole month flitted by without touching on the essence of the month...and this was true for every month up until July. At that point, it seemed to me that the book found its way (or perhaps I found the book's way), and it became excellent reading.
There are some truly delightful portions: a discursus on the word "hedge" as an element in plant names in regional dialects (Jack-along-the-hedge = garlic mustard; hedge maidens = ground ivy); the author's confession that she (like me!) can never keep up with all the flower concoctions one can make in the spring; the enticing tidbit that blackcurrant leaves make a choice sorbet; a beautiful pair of descriptions of two types of picnic, one elaborate and one impromptu. A lovely thread that does run through the book is quotation of countryside wisdom, in the form of proverbial maxims, poetry, diaries and letters and books, many dating from the 15th or 16th centuries.
In fact, no portion of the book is not interesting; it's just not clear to me why these particular topics belong together as a cohesive whole. I like the elegant brevity of the book, but it would be improved by doubling the length and sustaining more threads of subject matter across the seasons (for instance, by adding much more about the garden and the work it entails). I suspect that with a stronger heartbeat the book would have become much more well-known and beloved than it seems to be. As it is, the book gives you a pleasing whiff of the English countryside, but it could have steeped you in the glories of rural England.
It's composed of 12 chapters, one for each month, with a handful of page-long segments about various topics in each chapter. There is no thesis, and even the range of topics seemed surprisingly broad and disparate. Since the author was a famous gardener, I was expecting to bask in choice descriptions and well-wrought ruminations on nature, gardening, seasons, and so forth. And there is a good deal of that — discussions of hedges and verges and fields, drystone walls, bees in the roof, hedgehogs in the garden, resident birds and their habits, the joys of picnicking and apple harvesting — but also a good deal about visiting country houses (both in England and America), about village life (the church moneybox is stuck, the last postmistress hasn't been replaced), and about famous gardeners and landscapers from history.
The book presents a lovely potpourri, but its fault, I think, is that the components are too varied for you to get enough of a whiff of any one element. All the spring months slip by with scarcely a mention of the flowers blooming, or the work going on, in the garden. Instead we get, in May (for instance), brief essays on (1) a new authentic cheesemaking business in Gloucestershire, (2) the aforementioned bees in the roof, (3) the trees belonging to the author, (4) hedges, and (5) moles. All delightful topics, but are these really the most crucial to mention in May? I felt like the whole month flitted by without touching on the essence of the month...and this was true for every month up until July. At that point, it seemed to me that the book found its way (or perhaps I found the book's way), and it became excellent reading.
There are some truly delightful portions: a discursus on the word "hedge" as an element in plant names in regional dialects (Jack-along-the-hedge = garlic mustard; hedge maidens = ground ivy); the author's confession that she (like me!) can never keep up with all the flower concoctions one can make in the spring; the enticing tidbit that blackcurrant leaves make a choice sorbet; a beautiful pair of descriptions of two types of picnic, one elaborate and one impromptu. A lovely thread that does run through the book is quotation of countryside wisdom, in the form of proverbial maxims, poetry, diaries and letters and books, many dating from the 15th or 16th centuries.
In fact, no portion of the book is not interesting; it's just not clear to me why these particular topics belong together as a cohesive whole. I like the elegant brevity of the book, but it would be improved by doubling the length and sustaining more threads of subject matter across the seasons (for instance, by adding much more about the garden and the work it entails). I suspect that with a stronger heartbeat the book would have become much more well-known and beloved than it seems to be. As it is, the book gives you a pleasing whiff of the English countryside, but it could have steeped you in the glories of rural England.
November 3, 2010
Short and entertaining little book highlighting the 12 months of the year as gleaned from the noted English gardener/naturalist Rosemary Verey (if the foreward by Prince Charles is any indication).
Every month contains Verey's short insights from living on her estate in the Cotswolds. I enjoyed her observations as well as the pen and ink drawings by various artists scattered throughout. This book would, I think, would make a good companion piece to The Inland Island, by Josephine Johnson:
Nice book to pick up and read for an hour or so if you enjoy gardening or the natural world.
Every month contains Verey's short insights from living on her estate in the Cotswolds. I enjoyed her observations as well as the pen and ink drawings by various artists scattered throughout. This book would, I think, would make a good companion piece to The Inland Island, by Josephine Johnson:
Nice book to pick up and read for an hour or so if you enjoy gardening or the natural world.
December 6, 2022
I was under the impression this had some vintage home skills in it. It really has nothing at all but some short meandering thoughts if an elderly church woman in flower arranging.
May 12, 2022
A lovely bit of rambling about gardening and country life in the British countryside. The art is wonderful too.
July 4, 2022
Cute. Not a game of the journal style scatterings but it was nice to keep time with her.
December 9, 2022
Such a lovely account of life in the country, broken up by month.
August 2, 2025
Fun to read month by month with some interesting garden/farm/nature tidbits
August 31, 2025
One LESS on the paperback TBR shelf.📚
April 22, 2024
Month by month musings on life in the British countryside. Verey is an an engaging and companionable guide. Seeing that the author is garden expert Rosemary Verey I assumed this was a book about gardening, but found this is not the case. There is gardening in it but it is not exclusively about gardening. It is a paean instead to life lived and closely observed in the British countryside, a quieter, more peaceful way of life. Originally published in 1989, with an introduction by the Prince of Wales, it is probably a bit outdated now; but not, I hope, too outdated.
April 2024 - I enjoyed re-reading this while waiting for spring.
April 2024 - I enjoyed re-reading this while waiting for spring.
October 28, 2016
I loved her musings on the year in an English garden. I wish she would have used more descriptive prose when discussing the parts of the year with no active vegetables or flowers. She does so well describing how things look during the summer months that I could almost imagine it, but kind of fails during the colder months. still, I'm pleased with the book.
August 9, 2011
I really enjoy Rosemary Verey's work, but this book was a bit of a disappointment. It is divided into the twelve months, but there is not enough detail for each month. There isn't enough personal observation, enough connection for me. She doesn't sound passionate, and that was what I wanted.
July 9, 2012
When the world wearies, and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden (or books about gardens)
October 25, 2012
Very enjoyable month by month look at the year round activities in the garden by one of Britain's gardening greats. A soothing read.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews