David Hicks: My Kind of Garden

The late David Hicks is one of the great designers of the twentieth century. He is primarily known for his interior design, but he was also involved with carpets, jewellery, fabrics, furniture, wall paper, sheets and, last but not least, gardens. His approach was dictatorial and uncompromising and he did not mince his words. What he seeks to impart in this book is 'style' and it is very much a style of his own.

His clear-cut attitudes are revealed in these writings on garden design and on the gardens and styles which he admires. 'What I have sought to achieve, all through my working life,' he writes 'is a liaison between the past and the present day whilst maintaining a practical but somewhat experimental attitude to outdated tradition. I have attempted to introduce a lot of today and some of tomorrow whilst always keeping appropriateness and the client's requirements foremost in my mind. This applies to my interior designing, product designing, writing, jewellery and garden designing. In every one of those visually dominated activities quality, form and innovation are always of vital importance to produce style.'

My Kind of Garden is superbly illustrated with photographs, by Dana Hyde, of gardens David Hicks designed, and gardens from all around the world which particularly appealed to his very personal sense of good taste.