ein sehr bewegendes Buch über einen sehr individuellen Garten an der steinigen Küste Südostenglands, unter den Türmen des AKW Dungeness. Ein Muss für alle, die ihren Garten dem genius loci unterordnen, die Pflanzen frei sein lassen wollen. ( )

Derek Jarman's garden is beautiful and odd. In the mid-1980s he bought a fisherman's cottage on Dungeness, a bleak expanse of shingle on the English south coast with views of the sea, a lighthouse and a massive nuclear power station. I visited Dungeness as a child and was fascinated by how desolate and strange the place is.

A few years ago, I visited Dungeness again with friends and we included a trip to see Derek Jarman's garden. Jarman, a painter and film director who died in the 90s, created a garden of stones, native plants and sculptures of wood and metal. It fits the landscape perfectly.

This book contains Jarman's writing about his garden right up to the last year of his life, accompanied by pictures taken by a friend of Jarman and the garden. It gave me a real sense of him as a person and increased my enjoyment of seeing the garden in real life. ( )

I read this in French (un dernier jardin) but I wish I owned it in English. The photos are wonderful.