Virginia Woolf's Garden: The Story of the Garden at Monk's House

In 1919, Leonard and Virginia Woolf bought Monk's House, an 18th-century Sussex cottage on three-quarters of an acre of land. It became their beloved country retreat. Zoob and her husband were the National Trust tenants there for the last ten or so years, charged with, among other things, maintaining the gardens, whose "fertility & wildness," as described by Virginia, are palpable today in Arber's luscious photographs of layered retreats and pathways. After providing background on the Woolfs, Zoob intertwines descriptions of their years at Monk's House (Leonard was there for 28 years after Virginia's suicide in 1941) while walking readers from one garden "room" to another (Leonard, the active gardener, devised these), among them the fishpond garden, Italian garden, walled garden, orchard, and special plantings outside of Virginia's bedroom. Watercolor planting diagrams indicate the species now flourishing (there are no gardening instructions). Many traditional components of a herbaceous border are evident. The property became, writes Zoob, "the garden of [Virginia's] writing life." Zoob and Arber also take us inside the house and Virginia's "writing lodge" built in the orchard. All is much as the Woolfs knew it—but neater (VW was not tidy!).