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Allways trilogy #1
Down the Garden Path
Down the Garden Path has stood the test of time as one of the world’s best-loved and most-quoted gardening books. From a disaster building a rock garden, to further adventures with greenhouses, woodland gardens, not to mention cats and treacle, Nichols has left us a true gardening classic.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 1931
54 people are currently reading
2423 people want to read
About the author
Beverley Nichols
102 books149 followersJohn Beverley Nichols (born September 9, 1898 in Bower Ashton, Bristol, died September 15, 1983 in Kingston, London), was an English writer, playwright, actor, novelist and composer. He went to school at Marlborough College, and went to Balliol College, Oxford University, and was President of the Oxford Union and editor of Isis.
Between his first novel, Prelude, published in 1920, and Twilight in 1982, he wrote more than 60 books and plays on topics such as travel, politics, religion, cats, novels, mysteries, and children's stories, authoring six novels, five detective mysteries, four children's stories, six plays, and no fewer than six autobiographies.
Nichols is perhaps best remembered as a writer for Woman's Own and for his gardening books, the first of which Down the Garden Path, was illustrated — as were many of his books — by Rex Whistler. This bestseller — which has had 32 editions and has been in print almost continuously since 1932 — was the first of his trilogy about Allways, his Tudor thatched cottage in Glatton, Cambridgeshire. A later trilogy written between 1951 and 1956 documents his travails renovating Merry Hall (Meadowstream), a Georgian manor house in Agates Lane, Ashtead, Surrey, where Nichols lived from 1946 to 1956. These books often feature his gifted but laconic gardener "Oldfield". Nichols's final trilogy is referred to as "The Sudbrook Trilogy" (1963–1969) and concerns his late 18th-century attached cottage at Ham, (near Richmond), Surrey.
Nichols was a prolific author who wrote on a wide range of topics. He ghostwrote Dame Nellie Melba’s "autobiography" Memories and Melodies (1925), and in 1966 he wrote A Case of Human Bondage about the marriage and divorce of William Somerset Maugham and Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo, which was highly critical of Maugham. Father Figure, which appeared in 1972 and in which he described how he had tried to murder his alcoholic and abusive father, caused a great uproar and several people asked for his prosecution. His autobiographies usually feature Arthur R. Gaskin who was Nichols’ manservant from 1924 until Gaskin's death from cirrhosis in 1966. Nichols made one appearance on film - in 1931 he appeared in Glamour, directed by Seymour Hicks and Harry Hughes, playing the part of the Hon. Richard Wells.
Nichols' long-term partner was Cyril Butcher. He died in 1983 from complications after a fall.
Between his first novel, Prelude, published in 1920, and Twilight in 1982, he wrote more than 60 books and plays on topics such as travel, politics, religion, cats, novels, mysteries, and children's stories, authoring six novels, five detective mysteries, four children's stories, six plays, and no fewer than six autobiographies.
Nichols is perhaps best remembered as a writer for Woman's Own and for his gardening books, the first of which Down the Garden Path, was illustrated — as were many of his books — by Rex Whistler. This bestseller — which has had 32 editions and has been in print almost continuously since 1932 — was the first of his trilogy about Allways, his Tudor thatched cottage in Glatton, Cambridgeshire. A later trilogy written between 1951 and 1956 documents his travails renovating Merry Hall (Meadowstream), a Georgian manor house in Agates Lane, Ashtead, Surrey, where Nichols lived from 1946 to 1956. These books often feature his gifted but laconic gardener "Oldfield". Nichols's final trilogy is referred to as "The Sudbrook Trilogy" (1963–1969) and concerns his late 18th-century attached cottage at Ham, (near Richmond), Surrey.
Nichols was a prolific author who wrote on a wide range of topics. He ghostwrote Dame Nellie Melba’s "autobiography" Memories and Melodies (1925), and in 1966 he wrote A Case of Human Bondage about the marriage and divorce of William Somerset Maugham and Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo, which was highly critical of Maugham. Father Figure, which appeared in 1972 and in which he described how he had tried to murder his alcoholic and abusive father, caused a great uproar and several people asked for his prosecution. His autobiographies usually feature Arthur R. Gaskin who was Nichols’ manservant from 1924 until Gaskin's death from cirrhosis in 1966. Nichols made one appearance on film - in 1931 he appeared in Glamour, directed by Seymour Hicks and Harry Hughes, playing the part of the Hon. Richard Wells.
Nichols' long-term partner was Cyril Butcher. He died in 1983 from complications after a fall.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 173 reviews
February 24, 2024
This is one of those books that would have forever remained hidden from my reading world without the auspices of Goodreads in general and my GR buddy Leslie in particular (to Leslie - thanks for your squee-worthy review which led me to read this).
Written in the early 30's by a witty, jazz-age playwright (a man with the unfortunate first name of "Beverley"), Down the Garden Path chronicles Nichols' attempts to cultivate the garden of his dreams in the rural midlands of England. Nichols is by turns catty, euphoric, urbane, sly and cocky. His tale is meandering, goes nowhere fast and accomplishes very little in terms of gardening expertise except...
...except...
except to inspire the reader with an almost uncontrollable desire to purchase a rambling thatched cottage in rural England, plow up a few acres of land, create a rock garden, dig a pond, build a greenhouse, plant "a wood", traipse around said garden in the middle of January in an exploration for winter flowers, pithily tell off a few obnoxious, neighboring rival gardeners, and gush about flowers like some women gush about babies.
This is a little gem of a book. It won't change your life, but it will open your eyes to the delight of simple joys.
Me loves.
Written in the early 30's by a witty, jazz-age playwright (a man with the unfortunate first name of "Beverley"), Down the Garden Path chronicles Nichols' attempts to cultivate the garden of his dreams in the rural midlands of England. Nichols is by turns catty, euphoric, urbane, sly and cocky. His tale is meandering, goes nowhere fast and accomplishes very little in terms of gardening expertise except...
...except...
except to inspire the reader with an almost uncontrollable desire to purchase a rambling thatched cottage in rural England, plow up a few acres of land, create a rock garden, dig a pond, build a greenhouse, plant "a wood", traipse around said garden in the middle of January in an exploration for winter flowers, pithily tell off a few obnoxious, neighboring rival gardeners, and gush about flowers like some women gush about babies.
This is a little gem of a book. It won't change your life, but it will open your eyes to the delight of simple joys.
Me loves.
January 4, 2013
So this is my review of Beverley Nichols’ Down The Garden Path. The reader already knows I really, really liked it because of the rare 5 star rating. I haven’t tossed one out there in ages. I haven’t even considered it. This book, for me, is the beginning of a friendship, even though the other guy is long gone. I can say this because I’ve already searched Amazon and Goodreads and learned there is much more of this comical, curmudgeonly garden enthusiast’s work out there just waiting for me. Sigh. Life IS good after all. People often refer to any book written by an Englishman that is funny as something that readers of Wodehouse would like. I didn’t like Wodehouse, found it vacant, soulless. This funny curmudgeonly Englishman, Nichols, is funny though, and more than that, he has soul.
By the way, I am not only a curmudgeon myself; I’m also a cheap tightwad. I never pay full price for anything and almost never buy a book I can borrow from the library. But this book broke all the cheapskate rules I’ve made for myself. I paid almost 15 bucks for it. ON Kindle. I don’t have anything to gaze at fondly and leave lying on the secretary here with a ribbon tied around it fondly and I’m okay with that. That’s how good it is. Here are a few bits I highlighted as I read.
“I believe in doing things too soon. In striking before the iron is hot, in leaping before one has looked, in loving before one has been introduced. Nearly all the great and exciting things in life have been done by men who did them too soon. It was far, far too soon for Columbus to set out on his crazy trip to the New World. The ether was not ready for Beethoven when he began a symphony on a dominant seventh. Shelley, long before the appointed time, unloosed, with trembling fingers, the starched ribbons which bound the dress of Poetry.”
So yeah, that’s how Mr. Beverley Nichols begins his little book about how he began his first proper garden. Even before reading that bit of perfect loveliness I knew I’d like this book but couldn’t be sure I’d love it. By the way, one needn’t be a gardening enthusiast to enjoy this book. I’m sure anyone with a pulse will laugh out loud reading this. I did. It’s hard to get a smirk out of me, I am hard to amuse. I see everything coming. This Nichols, chap, though, he’s genius. Anyway, see here for yourself, you doubter.
“I have a horror of those leaden cupids who illustrate, so gruesomely, the ultimate horrors of Bright’s disease in many suburban pleasaunces.” (Heeehee- he means fat cupid statues that appear swollen like a person with kidney failure!)
“I am depressed unutterably by those horrible little German manikins which some people scatter over their properties…grouping them oh! So archly…popping out of rhododendrons, or lifting their horrid heads from a lavender hedge.” (He would roll over in his grave perhaps if he knew garden gnomes had made such a comeback. I have tiny ones myself popping out of plants just like he writes here!)
“I shall probably go bankrupt, with my tastes. But I would rather be made bankrupt by a bulb merchant than by a chorus girl.”
“Every gardener has a strange and romantic tale to tell if you can worm it out of him…of blue flowers that came up yellow, or of a white lily that sinned in the night and greeted the dawn with crimson cheeks.”
“It seemed incredible that goldfish should have black children. Had a black fish got into the pond, and had something unholy been going on?”
“But I feel that the trees are my friends, that I could wander naked among them without hurt, and sleep unharmed among their sturdy roots.” (Trees make good friends, they don’t judge, they just give.)
“Up till now I knew practically nothing about trees. I had only old scraps of miscellaneous information. For example, I knew that ash buds were black in March. But I knew it not from observation but from Tennyson, and I knew it not from reading Tennyson but from reading Cranford.” Gotta love a guy who read and loved Cranford.
“ Was she to be killed? Or was she – in the words of the Sunday newspapers- on the point of being ‘interfered with?’”. He is so funny with those little insertions about how things are translated for the Sunday papers.
“To go the greenhouse when the weather is wild, to close the door, to stand and listen to the wind outside, to the rain that slashes the frail roof, to see, through the misted glass, the black, storm-tossed branches of distant elms, to take a deep breath, to savour to the full the strange and almost uncanny peace which this frail tenement creates…to me this is one of the truest joys which life has given.” ( Yeah, so now I want a greenhouse. Yeah, I live on the gulf coast but we do get a couple of nasty 40ish degree days in winter.)
“When I look at the cyclamen on my desk, with petals of the palest ivory…a cyclamen that looks like a flight of butterflies, frozen for a single, exquisite moment in the white heart of Time…then I try to think back from the petal to the bud, from the bud to the curling stem, from the stem to the first, fan-shaped leaf, and from that leaf to the tiny seed. And I cannot realize it.” And he goes on… “Oh…these were cyclamen, without any doubt…they held themselves sturdily against the fawning weeds…there was a fine flourish about them, which set them apart from the rank usurpers of their place.” Usurpers? Ha!
Regarding women being too dainty to plant daffodils: “It needs a man to plant daffodils. An enormous man with bulging muscles, large nostrils, few morals and absolutely no pity. He has to be as callous as a mathematician, as orderly as a sergeant-major, and as cynical as a political agent.”
About one of his favorite flowers, snowdrops: “Why should one want to go out to dinner when one can stay home with the snowdrops, and enjoy them in solitude? It took a few million years to make a snowdrop. Surely one is justified in spending a few hours in studying the results?” After reading that bit, I suddenly remembered a lovely potted Amaryllis I had seen this week at the grocery store of all places. Amaryllis thrive at my house,indeed, hundreds of them had been planted 2 owners back and I add more every year. They do well here in our hot humid climate. So I suddenly thought how perhaps I shouldn’t wait for the price to come down on them because, horrors!, maybe they would all be bought before I next went shopping? I threw some shoes on and grabbed the rugrat and made haste to the grocery store. There, to my great relief, I found one, beautiful perfect white amaryllis was left. It was overpriced, but so perfect. We greeted each other with such smiles as people hardly get from me, as , after all, I am a curmudgeon. I took her home and admit to being enraptured enough to move her about the house so that she is always in view. She adds such an elegance to every room she graces. I believe I shall name her Grace. This spring she shall be plopped into the garden in a place suitable for her.
By the way, I am not only a curmudgeon myself; I’m also a cheap tightwad. I never pay full price for anything and almost never buy a book I can borrow from the library. But this book broke all the cheapskate rules I’ve made for myself. I paid almost 15 bucks for it. ON Kindle. I don’t have anything to gaze at fondly and leave lying on the secretary here with a ribbon tied around it fondly and I’m okay with that. That’s how good it is. Here are a few bits I highlighted as I read.
“I believe in doing things too soon. In striking before the iron is hot, in leaping before one has looked, in loving before one has been introduced. Nearly all the great and exciting things in life have been done by men who did them too soon. It was far, far too soon for Columbus to set out on his crazy trip to the New World. The ether was not ready for Beethoven when he began a symphony on a dominant seventh. Shelley, long before the appointed time, unloosed, with trembling fingers, the starched ribbons which bound the dress of Poetry.”
So yeah, that’s how Mr. Beverley Nichols begins his little book about how he began his first proper garden. Even before reading that bit of perfect loveliness I knew I’d like this book but couldn’t be sure I’d love it. By the way, one needn’t be a gardening enthusiast to enjoy this book. I’m sure anyone with a pulse will laugh out loud reading this. I did. It’s hard to get a smirk out of me, I am hard to amuse. I see everything coming. This Nichols, chap, though, he’s genius. Anyway, see here for yourself, you doubter.
“I have a horror of those leaden cupids who illustrate, so gruesomely, the ultimate horrors of Bright’s disease in many suburban pleasaunces.” (Heeehee- he means fat cupid statues that appear swollen like a person with kidney failure!)
“I am depressed unutterably by those horrible little German manikins which some people scatter over their properties…grouping them oh! So archly…popping out of rhododendrons, or lifting their horrid heads from a lavender hedge.” (He would roll over in his grave perhaps if he knew garden gnomes had made such a comeback. I have tiny ones myself popping out of plants just like he writes here!)
“I shall probably go bankrupt, with my tastes. But I would rather be made bankrupt by a bulb merchant than by a chorus girl.”
“Every gardener has a strange and romantic tale to tell if you can worm it out of him…of blue flowers that came up yellow, or of a white lily that sinned in the night and greeted the dawn with crimson cheeks.”
“It seemed incredible that goldfish should have black children. Had a black fish got into the pond, and had something unholy been going on?”
“But I feel that the trees are my friends, that I could wander naked among them without hurt, and sleep unharmed among their sturdy roots.” (Trees make good friends, they don’t judge, they just give.)
“Up till now I knew practically nothing about trees. I had only old scraps of miscellaneous information. For example, I knew that ash buds were black in March. But I knew it not from observation but from Tennyson, and I knew it not from reading Tennyson but from reading Cranford.” Gotta love a guy who read and loved Cranford.
“ Was she to be killed? Or was she – in the words of the Sunday newspapers- on the point of being ‘interfered with?’”. He is so funny with those little insertions about how things are translated for the Sunday papers.
“To go the greenhouse when the weather is wild, to close the door, to stand and listen to the wind outside, to the rain that slashes the frail roof, to see, through the misted glass, the black, storm-tossed branches of distant elms, to take a deep breath, to savour to the full the strange and almost uncanny peace which this frail tenement creates…to me this is one of the truest joys which life has given.” ( Yeah, so now I want a greenhouse. Yeah, I live on the gulf coast but we do get a couple of nasty 40ish degree days in winter.)
“When I look at the cyclamen on my desk, with petals of the palest ivory…a cyclamen that looks like a flight of butterflies, frozen for a single, exquisite moment in the white heart of Time…then I try to think back from the petal to the bud, from the bud to the curling stem, from the stem to the first, fan-shaped leaf, and from that leaf to the tiny seed. And I cannot realize it.” And he goes on… “Oh…these were cyclamen, without any doubt…they held themselves sturdily against the fawning weeds…there was a fine flourish about them, which set them apart from the rank usurpers of their place.” Usurpers? Ha!
Regarding women being too dainty to plant daffodils: “It needs a man to plant daffodils. An enormous man with bulging muscles, large nostrils, few morals and absolutely no pity. He has to be as callous as a mathematician, as orderly as a sergeant-major, and as cynical as a political agent.”
About one of his favorite flowers, snowdrops: “Why should one want to go out to dinner when one can stay home with the snowdrops, and enjoy them in solitude? It took a few million years to make a snowdrop. Surely one is justified in spending a few hours in studying the results?” After reading that bit, I suddenly remembered a lovely potted Amaryllis I had seen this week at the grocery store of all places. Amaryllis thrive at my house,indeed, hundreds of them had been planted 2 owners back and I add more every year. They do well here in our hot humid climate. So I suddenly thought how perhaps I shouldn’t wait for the price to come down on them because, horrors!, maybe they would all be bought before I next went shopping? I threw some shoes on and grabbed the rugrat and made haste to the grocery store. There, to my great relief, I found one, beautiful perfect white amaryllis was left. It was overpriced, but so perfect. We greeted each other with such smiles as people hardly get from me, as , after all, I am a curmudgeon. I took her home and admit to being enraptured enough to move her about the house so that she is always in view. She adds such an elegance to every room she graces. I believe I shall name her Grace. This spring she shall be plopped into the garden in a place suitable for her.
January 28, 2024
Beverley Nichols has Opinions about Gardens (and about other gardeners!) and yet how can you not like a man who spends hours upon hours deciding how best to transport dahlias from his cottage garden in the Midlands to his London flat? (His solution is rather odd and I would love to have driven past him some early September day.) Nichols is a snob at worst but he doesn’t hesitate to turn his satirical eye to his own failures and naïveté about gardening and so bring you in on the joke. I love his witty turns of phrase and his elaborate schemes for winter flowers and a brand new wood and bouquets at every time of year. I love his head over heels love for the beauty and variety and cheering qualities of flowers and getting one’s hands into the dirt. Just today, I discovered that the snowdrops I planted in the fall of 2021 are multiplying. Twice as many thin green spears as I planted have pushed up through the cold dirt and bark. If I knew Nichols in real life, he would be the first person I’d call with this happy news.
January 29, 2024
Having already read and loved Merry Hall and it's sequels, I knew I was going to enjoy this book, though I had heard more than once that it catered more to gardeners than that trilogy. While there is a bit more technical detail in this one, I still don't think it is at all necessary to be a gardener to be able to appreciate the writing here; anyone already a fan of Beverley Nichols writing will find plenty to enjoy here, that said, for anyone who is not familiar, I would suggest starting off with Merry Hall.
November 6, 2008
If Noel Coward wrote gardening books instead of musicals, they might have been something like Down the Garden Path: campy, sentimental, and wise. Short chapters and pleasant associations make this a classic in my bedside book genre.
June 12, 2019
A garden biography, if there is such a thing, written by a man who preferred his garden to other humans. It was also humorous and non-challenging, which made it perfect for bedtime reading.
December 30, 2008
Sarcastic, self indulgent and beautiful. As a semi-autobiographical gardening book from an American in England back in the 1830's, Nichols takes an interest in gardening. Through transforming his newly purchased property into an admired landscape, he tells us of his misadventures, visitors, and nosy neighbors in such a way to have the reader feel very much in the confidence of an entertaining and close friend.
His account is a down to earth journal, where he opts to write articles for publication in order to earn enough to purchase more plants for his garden. His obvious delight in both understating his accomplishments and overstating his adventures makes me wish to, like him, wander through gardens, with a drink in hand, laughing at the rest of the world's folly.
His account is a down to earth journal, where he opts to write articles for publication in order to earn enough to purchase more plants for his garden. His obvious delight in both understating his accomplishments and overstating his adventures makes me wish to, like him, wander through gardens, with a drink in hand, laughing at the rest of the world's folly.
March 29, 2018
I read this book as a result of hearing it discussed on the Tea or Books podcast. It's an interesting read, as it doesn't fit into one genre. I would say it comes closest to memoir, but in a very niche way. The author, Beverley Nichols, details his purchase of a cottage and garden, and his succeeding adventures in getting things to grow and interacting with the neighbors.
I would say that there's something a bit Wodehousian about his writing, except that I think he is sharper of tongue. He's clever, but sometimes he seems mean or superior about himself. While reading, I would just about decide that I didn't really like him, but then would come some poetic, fervent rhapsodies on his garden, and I would dither back toward liking him. I really wonder how he would have come across in real life.
At any rate, this was a relaxing, pleasant read that really did enhance my appreciation for the hobby of gardening and the delight it can bring people.
I would say that there's something a bit Wodehousian about his writing, except that I think he is sharper of tongue. He's clever, but sometimes he seems mean or superior about himself. While reading, I would just about decide that I didn't really like him, but then would come some poetic, fervent rhapsodies on his garden, and I would dither back toward liking him. I really wonder how he would have come across in real life.
At any rate, this was a relaxing, pleasant read that really did enhance my appreciation for the hobby of gardening and the delight it can bring people.
May 12, 2010
You have to like flower gardening to read this book. Nothing happens in it, really. There's the partially-told story of Nichols purchase of a country house with wrecked garden, and his work at transforming it, but more than this the book is a collection of observations about plants, women gardeners, neighbor gardeners, greenhouses, cats, the enjoyment of winter plants, etc. Beverley Nichols loves flowers and gardens - that is the thing that makes this book fly.
A sample:
"For city gardens have a magic which is quite their own. You stand in your little plot. All around you are houses, chimney pots, windows, smoke. For mile upon mile, you know, there are bald, blank streets, in which no blade of grass will grow. They are so far away, the green fields, that you feel you may never see them again...you are trapped, like a prisoner, in a cell...a cell whose horror is accentuated by the fact the the door is unlocked...so that you may escape...but escape into what? Onto another cell, and yet another, until you begin to run madly, down streets that never end, until you fall exhausted at the foot of a lamp-post, on a hard pavement.
Yet here before you is a growing rose. Green and proud and sweet. It is as though its leaves were luminous, such infinite comfort do they exhale as they climb up the somber brick. All around the rose, in the dark earth, are tiny sprouts and delicate leaves, that proclaim a gracious independence of civilization. Why, when the wind comes, there is even a rustle in the leaves, so that if you close your eyes you can fancy yourself in the country. But you do not wish to close your eyes. You want to see what the rose is doing...guess its plans...to learn its pattern by heart." (pg.284)
It's not a thriller, but I liked it.
A sample:
"For city gardens have a magic which is quite their own. You stand in your little plot. All around you are houses, chimney pots, windows, smoke. For mile upon mile, you know, there are bald, blank streets, in which no blade of grass will grow. They are so far away, the green fields, that you feel you may never see them again...you are trapped, like a prisoner, in a cell...a cell whose horror is accentuated by the fact the the door is unlocked...so that you may escape...but escape into what? Onto another cell, and yet another, until you begin to run madly, down streets that never end, until you fall exhausted at the foot of a lamp-post, on a hard pavement.
Yet here before you is a growing rose. Green and proud and sweet. It is as though its leaves were luminous, such infinite comfort do they exhale as they climb up the somber brick. All around the rose, in the dark earth, are tiny sprouts and delicate leaves, that proclaim a gracious independence of civilization. Why, when the wind comes, there is even a rustle in the leaves, so that if you close your eyes you can fancy yourself in the country. But you do not wish to close your eyes. You want to see what the rose is doing...guess its plans...to learn its pattern by heart." (pg.284)
It's not a thriller, but I liked it.
June 23, 2022
I really enjoyed the first half of this book, but the second half or so was hard to slog through. I really like that this book is about gardening in the 1930's. I found the historical references, like the stock market crash of 1929, sending a telegram from a ship, etc. to be fascinating. The author talked about the mistakes he made gardening, like building his rock garden, in a fun, humorous way. It was also neat to read about how gardening and the sentiments around gardening are the same as they were 90 years ago. The excitement of seeing the irises poke their pointy tips through the soil in the spring. The joy of touring your garden every day and finding a colorful flower in bloom that wasn't there yesterday. The surprise of finding something new in your garden that you didn't plant. The wonder of finding your blue-eyed grass covered in gorgeous blossoms in early spring just because that's what it does in spring.
I wasn't as interested in the characters in the garden (I found the professor to be annoying). I had to force myself to finish the book because the chapters got to be long, flowery, poetic-sounding soliloquys about various topics and I don't like that kind of writing. Still, I enjoyed the tone of the book, the author's fascination with flowers, things of nature, and the joy he found in his garden. There are also some really good quotes about gardening in this book.
I wasn't as interested in the characters in the garden (I found the professor to be annoying). I had to force myself to finish the book because the chapters got to be long, flowery, poetic-sounding soliloquys about various topics and I don't like that kind of writing. Still, I enjoyed the tone of the book, the author's fascination with flowers, things of nature, and the joy he found in his garden. There are also some really good quotes about gardening in this book.
May 22, 2008
made me laugh out loud alone in bed, quite late at night. seriously gleeful laughter. the only problem was how he'd refer, at times, to being poor: he was an aristocrat with servants and multiple properties. sigh. oh, and his 1930's era elegantly closeted homosexual brand of misogyny. enormously charming, nonetheless! highly recommended for plant lovers, eddie izzard lovers and those who believe they should have been born in london, paris or berlin in 1920.
April 2, 2018
Beverley Nichols was an enormously prolific writer – journalism, politics, autobiography and novels. Though some of his most popular works seem to have been his books of gardening and house restoration. Down the Garden Path is the first book in one of the two gardening trilogies that Nichols produced. A book about gardening restoration is not something I would usually read, but there was something very appealing about this trilogy. Having heard such wonderful things about Nichol’s warm witty writing from other readers, it seemed a good place to start. However, I think I probably have the best books still to read, as it seems some people believe the other gardening trilogy starting with Merry Hall is better than this one. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
“I bought my cottage by sending a wireless to Timbuctoo from the Mauretania, at midnight, with a fierce storm lashing the decks.
It sounds rather vulgar, but it is true.”
In the early 1930’s Beverley Nichols was already a well-known writer – still quite a young man, he also had a passion for gardens, and it would seem, enough money to buy a cottage with large gardens in the country. This book tells the story of the garden (and cottage) he bought in Cambridgeshire. It and the two sequels which follow were illustrated by Rex Whistler – and were a huge success.
Having quite rashly bought his cottage – because of the gardens he knew came with it –Beverley hurried down to view his new house, hardly able to wait to see the garden. He is met by Arthur – a strange, oddly behaved servant who provides him with uneatable food and stays in bed all morning. The garden however, which Beverley remembered so well has been sadly neglected, and is nothing like it had been. He is devastated, but the immediately starts putting it to rights, planning how it will look, researching in detail winter flowers, so that there is always flowers in his garden. It is a labour of love.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
“I bought my cottage by sending a wireless to Timbuctoo from the Mauretania, at midnight, with a fierce storm lashing the decks.
It sounds rather vulgar, but it is true.”
In the early 1930’s Beverley Nichols was already a well-known writer – still quite a young man, he also had a passion for gardens, and it would seem, enough money to buy a cottage with large gardens in the country. This book tells the story of the garden (and cottage) he bought in Cambridgeshire. It and the two sequels which follow were illustrated by Rex Whistler – and were a huge success.
Having quite rashly bought his cottage – because of the gardens he knew came with it –Beverley hurried down to view his new house, hardly able to wait to see the garden. He is met by Arthur – a strange, oddly behaved servant who provides him with uneatable food and stays in bed all morning. The garden however, which Beverley remembered so well has been sadly neglected, and is nothing like it had been. He is devastated, but the immediately starts putting it to rights, planning how it will look, researching in detail winter flowers, so that there is always flowers in his garden. It is a labour of love.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
May 28, 2019
There were some really fun parts and some good wit in Beverley Nichol's first of several gardening-themed books. This is mostly a memoir of his country home's large gardens, and an ode to his love for flowers. The best little vignettes had to do with the locals, his neighbor, his father (who I loved) and the town children - but his rapturous tomes of delight toward this or that latin-named flower were rather lost on me as I am relatively ignorant of such things. It was clear that here is a man of passion. The book is enjoyable, if a little chauvinistic (and I'm not at all politically correct). The many annoying run-ins with nosy neighbor "Mrs. M" were hilarious, and a few paragraphs before Nichols said anything about marriage, I though, "it would be crazy if he ended up marrying her." I'm not sure if later books prove my theory, but one of these day's I will find out. I can recommend the book as a wonderfully diverse and well-crafted piece of semi-biographic writing.
June 24, 2022
Living flower picture. Just delightful.
January 21, 2023
A most unique book. Excellent writing!
September 17, 2018
Even though it was written in the 1930's, Down the Garden Path is timeless & delightful and I think all gardeners should be able to relate to the author's passion for gardening. I enjoyed reading about the tranformation of his cottage grounds and all of his observations about nature along the way. He is a bit misogynistic and mean spirited to his women neighbors & women gardeners at times, but I never took him too seriously and wasn't offended. The author is quite funny when discussing the trials and tribulations in his garden and some of the characters in his life at the time. The wildflower game had me chuckling. As a fellow gardener & kindred spirit of the author, there were so many gems in the book like the following quotes that I loved:
"To dig one's spade into the earth. Has life anything better to offer than this?"
"A gardener, if he is like many gardeners I know...is a wild and highly-strung creature, whose mind trembles like the aspen and is warped by sudden frosts and scarred by strange winds. His spirit is as tenuous as the mists that hang, like ghosts, about the winter orchards, and in his eyes one can see the shadows of clouds on black and distant hills."
"To me all woods are enchanted. I cannot imagine being lonely in them."
"A gardener is never shut out from his garden, wherever he may be. Its comfort never fails. Though the city may close about him, and the grime and soot descend upon him, he can still wander in his garden, does he but close his eyes."
"To dig one's spade into the earth. Has life anything better to offer than this?"
"A gardener, if he is like many gardeners I know...is a wild and highly-strung creature, whose mind trembles like the aspen and is warped by sudden frosts and scarred by strange winds. His spirit is as tenuous as the mists that hang, like ghosts, about the winter orchards, and in his eyes one can see the shadows of clouds on black and distant hills."
"To me all woods are enchanted. I cannot imagine being lonely in them."
"A gardener is never shut out from his garden, wherever he may be. Its comfort never fails. Though the city may close about him, and the grime and soot descend upon him, he can still wander in his garden, does he but close his eyes."
June 19, 2017
"... the best gardening books should be written by those who still have to search their brains for the honeysuckle’s languid Latin name, who still feel awe at the miracle which follows the setting of a geranium cutting in its appointed loam." (9)
A delightfully funny* "floral autobiography" (75) in which Nichols details his adventures and misadventures in restoring the garden of a newly acquired cottage in the English Midlands. For added delights, I highly recommend Googling the flowers he names -- admittedly this is a lot of work because sometimes there are dozens of flower names on a page, so I didn't actually look up every flower, but flowers are pretty amazing and it was nice to have to have a visual reference when I took the trouble to look them up.
*90% delightfully funny — there is an unfortunate chapter near the end called "Women Gardeners" in which Nichols says that women can't be good gardeners because they are too emotional/competitive/&c. *eyeroll* Also there were a few hints of 1930s racism and classism.
"Moreover, when one came to mushrooms themselves, there was no reference to seeds or cuttings, but only to ‘spawn.’ Spawn? Spawn sounded very obscene. If one started throwing spawn about, anything might happen." (44)
A delightfully funny* "floral autobiography" (75) in which Nichols details his adventures and misadventures in restoring the garden of a newly acquired cottage in the English Midlands. For added delights, I highly recommend Googling the flowers he names -- admittedly this is a lot of work because sometimes there are dozens of flower names on a page, so I didn't actually look up every flower, but flowers are pretty amazing and it was nice to have to have a visual reference when I took the trouble to look them up.
*90% delightfully funny — there is an unfortunate chapter near the end called "Women Gardeners" in which Nichols says that women can't be good gardeners because they are too emotional/competitive/&c. *eyeroll* Also there were a few hints of 1930s racism and classism.
"Moreover, when one came to mushrooms themselves, there was no reference to seeds or cuttings, but only to ‘spawn.’ Spawn? Spawn sounded very obscene. If one started throwing spawn about, anything might happen." (44)
June 14, 2018
My first experience with Beverley Nichols was Merry Hall, written about 20 years after this one, and which I found to be completely and utterly delightful. While I can see Nichols' writerly skill here, and he shows some of his trademark whimsy, I can't quite put my finger on why I liked Down the Garden Path so much less. I think that maybe Merry Hall had more lovable oddball characters and adventures, and fewer rapturous lists of flowers that I can't picture without resorting to google. There's definitely more misogyny in this one, and more classist snobbery.
There are a few bright spots: the characterization of his nemesis, Mrs. M; trying (unsuccessfully) to sow a field of mushrooms; and the section on cats visiting his city garden. On the whole though, I think that my love of the Merry Hall trilogy set my expectations too high, and I'm unsure if I want to finish out the books in this trilogy.
There are a few bright spots: the characterization of his nemesis, Mrs. M; trying (unsuccessfully) to sow a field of mushrooms; and the section on cats visiting his city garden. On the whole though, I think that my love of the Merry Hall trilogy set my expectations too high, and I'm unsure if I want to finish out the books in this trilogy.
January 7, 2016
I grew up in postwar England and remember being aware of the presence of Beverley Nichols in the media of the time. As an adult I read this book and absolutely fell in love. I went on to buy up almost a complete collection of his books and thought at the time I must be the only person left in the world who had made the amazing discovery of this talented author and his enchanting gardening, books. Some of his other books have a darker shade to them which balances the pure delight of the books he wrote about his passions of gardening and cats. He also wrote some very good children's books.
December 12, 2025
Third time: One of my all-time favorite gardening books, though it isn't technically a gardening book. It's a memoir about his own garden, which he built in the 1930s (with hired help). When I built my own garden in 2003, I used this book as my guide for plants, arrangements, and upkeep.
My second time to read this book. I loved the entire series by this fastidious and quirky English gardener. His writing is humorous, his recommendations for gardens and gardening top notch.
My second time to read this book. I loved the entire series by this fastidious and quirky English gardener. His writing is humorous, his recommendations for gardens and gardening top notch.
March 15, 2015
I want to live in Beverely Nichols' world.
July 3, 2016
A charming book - the author obviously had a true and deep love of plants. Also interesting to see how society and attitudes have changed since the early thirties.
August 29, 2021
Thank heaven there have been people in this world like Beverley Nichols. I find him most entertaining, witty, and informative. This is one of his “garden autobiographies” with a more meandering and less organized format. He does it well, though, and we can keep up with him and where he is.
His try at growing, I mean spawning, mushrooms is hilarious. I read it aloud to a few family members who could enjoy it too. I never thought to have a mushroom garden. I also never thought to include a “wood” or forest as a part of my gardening pursuits. I love all his ideas. I also especially love his passion for winter flowers. He speaks of these in a later book as well and has more to add.
His warning to his reader at the end is more of something exciting rather than ominous. “I am going to write at least six more gardening books. They will be thrust upon you by cunning maidens, under titles which make you think that they have nothing to do with gardening at all. But they will have everything to do with gardening.” There’s his wit again.
‘Twas a lovely romp through Allways and thankfully I have the second book in this little series sitting on my side table awaiting my eager eyes and mind.
His try at growing, I mean spawning, mushrooms is hilarious. I read it aloud to a few family members who could enjoy it too. I never thought to have a mushroom garden. I also never thought to include a “wood” or forest as a part of my gardening pursuits. I love all his ideas. I also especially love his passion for winter flowers. He speaks of these in a later book as well and has more to add.
His warning to his reader at the end is more of something exciting rather than ominous. “I am going to write at least six more gardening books. They will be thrust upon you by cunning maidens, under titles which make you think that they have nothing to do with gardening at all. But they will have everything to do with gardening.” There’s his wit again.
‘Twas a lovely romp through Allways and thankfully I have the second book in this little series sitting on my side table awaiting my eager eyes and mind.
June 8, 2021
It makes me indescribably happy when people are excited to share what they truly love, so this book by a vivacious gay man about his home and garden in 1930s England unsurprisingly made my heart feel full every time I picked it up.
Beverley Nichols is so funny and effusive, self-deprecating about his abilities and yet bursting with happiness and pride to be able to talk about his unlikely passion. It doesn’t matter at all that I have several counts of criminally negligent plantslaughter against me or that I can’t tell apart an azalea from a grevillea — I was just happy to be invited along on the journey.
Beverley Nichols is so funny and effusive, self-deprecating about his abilities and yet bursting with happiness and pride to be able to talk about his unlikely passion. It doesn’t matter at all that I have several counts of criminally negligent plantslaughter against me or that I can’t tell apart an azalea from a grevillea — I was just happy to be invited along on the journey.
July 11, 2017
What a delightful book! It is "a wandering through a garden, a lazy pilgrimage.", describing the author's trials and triumphs in building a garden at his country home. The book is filled with wonderful descriptions of flowers and trees, along with amusing anecdotes. I especially loved his description of having a meal entirely from the garden, and there is a great section on the cats in his London garden. His interactions with the people who come to his country garden are amusing as well.
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February 16, 2019Very entertaining read for this non-gardener. Nichols was deft at conveying the magic of earth, seeds, leaves, and flowers. I so appreciated the map of his garden and referred to it often. Keep in mind that Nichols has old-fashioned and somewhat offensive attitudes toward women and working class people. These occasional sour notes were off-putting, but there's still much to love in this book. I look forward to reading more from Nichols -- Merry Hall awaits on my TBR shelf.
January 7, 2021
Having previously read his Merry Hall series, I am no stranger to Mr Nichols' charm, but had forgotten just how exquisitely he writes about plants and gardens, also how humorously he writes about gardeners and neighbors. What a gem.
I somehow am in possession of a beautifully bound hardback with the smoothest pages, printed by Timber Press, with a facsimile of the original 1932 printing, and with the delightful illustrations by Rex Whistler.
I somehow am in possession of a beautifully bound hardback with the smoothest pages, printed by Timber Press, with a facsimile of the original 1932 printing, and with the delightful illustrations by Rex Whistler.
February 5, 2024
This is the third January that I’ve read this! The bumbling, humorous, unreliable narrator is my favorite. The writing style rambles and curves and bends and takes you on a wonderful (albeit roundabout) tour of a 1930s English garden. It’s always a relief to read about other’s gardens when mine is sleeping!
April 14, 2022
There is absolutely no plot or point to this book. And yet I couldn’t help but be charmed with every page. A chuckle bubbled up at regular intervals as well. Anyone with any inkling for gardening will find this book an absolute delight.
December 27, 2019
This could be a little cringey at moments - Beverley is of his time, and so a colonial bourgeois misogynist - but when he's writing about plants and not people he's wonderful and hilarious.
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