The New Romantic Garden by Jo Thompson: the modern way to do the classic garden style

This new volume from publisher Rizzoli presents the work of one the UK’s leading garden designers, Jo Thompson, winner of four Chelsea Gold medals and five Silver Gilts. She is known for her romantic creations blending thoughtful design with loose and environmentally friendly planting. Thompson is the book’s author, so the cynically inclined may presume it to be a glossy portfolio designed to attract new customers. And, on the surface, it is. But aside from the dreamy photography – mostly by Jason Ingram and Rachel Warne – the elegant layout, and the superb production, it is Thompson’s generous and inspiring prose that makes The New Romantic Garden such a rich reading experience. It is a coffee table book, but it has depth.

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With 30 years of garden design under her belt, Thompson knows her stuff, but she wears her learning lightly and warmly. She describes her own gardening journey, from a small space among the London rooftops to her current country garden. She shares her unblushing love for ‘unfashionable’ plants – tulips, irises, roses and hydrangeas – and her respect for place, what garden historians refer to as, in the words of 18th-century poet Alexander Pope, the ‘genius of the place’.

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Thompson knows that creating a garden is about capturing an essence. And so she spends time immersing herself in each plot, talking to its custodians ‘over copious cups of tea’, and allowing what is already there to make itself heard, and felt. She is driven by a need to create something more than an aesthetically pleasing, sociable outdoor space. What she is looking for is ‘an atmosphere, a mood, a spirit’, something intangible. Just like Britain’s horticultural heroine Gertrude Jekyll, Jo Thompson sees gardening as art.

The comparison is apt. Both share an Arts and Crafts-inspired respect for a place’s past and locality, a desire to create emotion-inducing plant harmonies, a long list of happy clients, and a brilliant pen. With an emphasis on biodiversity and sustainability, Thompson offers us a redefining for the 21st century of the quintessential English garden style – a style that just over 100 years ago, Jekyll helped to define. I wonder whether Thompson will go down in history in a similar way?

But enough of historic conjecture; back to the book. Thompson goes on to describe 30 individual gardens she has worked on. The range of locations, sizes, themes and design outcomes is impressive. Whether it’s a Victorian walled garden, an ancient estate, a meadow, writer’s retreat, tiny urban back garden or city rooftop, the seashore or riverside, show gardens or a pub, with each of these Thompson shares her process with a clarity and honesty that will appeal as much to the aspiring designer as it will to the humble amateur. She doesn’t, however, offer a manual for success; it’s a lot more subtle than that. The lesson you learn goes to the heart of what makes a good gardener. Design skills, pragmatism and plant knowledge are vital, but more so is an inquisitive sensitivity and a gentle, organic approach.

Aside from the main text, the book features a handful of panels on topics dear to Thompson’s heart: ancient celebrations rooted in nature and the seasons, the Celtic festivals of Beltane and Samhain, the Green Man, the summer solstice and the spring equinox. Some readers may question whether these elements – interesting though they are – are necessary. They do, though, reinforce Thompson’s fascination with our (hi)stories and myths. For her, creating romance is about leaning into a world where memories, past inhabitants and even spirits inspire you. ‘What’s not to say that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden?’ she muses. Garden-making, for Jo Thompson, has a subtle alchemy all of its own.

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