The average mali we have seems unable to appreciate the difference between light watering, heavy watering flooding and drowning he being most adept at the last, for his commonest error is to lay the hose in a comer and leave it till the water has filled the bed entirely. Overflowed and watered the adjacent lawn and nearby road indiscriminately. Amateur gardeners, armchair gardeners, and those who like gardens but cannot tell phlox from petunia: Sydney Percy-Lancaster’s delightful guide is for everyone. Because it explains not only the What and the How but also the all-important Why, this is one of the most comprehensive and educative books on gardening in India. Even as it dispenses practical gardening tips, the leisurely charm of Percy-Lancaster’s writing evokes an India for away and long ago. Percy-Lancaster takes us through garden work month by month: open the book to the pages for the month you are in, follow his advice, and whatever open space you have – terrace or balcony, kitchen window or rambling lawn – will be full of leaf and flower.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sydney Percy-Lancaster
Sydney Percy-Lancaster was the last Englishman to hold the post of Superintendent of Horticultural Operations, Government of India. In the period after India’s independence, his routine chores included maintaining 15,000avenue trees on roads and clipping 150 miles of hedges. He was responsible for laying out the garden around Mahatma Gandhi’s Samadhi in Rajghat, and for planting 5,500 trees in the new refugee colonies of Rajinder Nagar, Lajpat Nagar and Patel Nagar. He provided the greenery at the National Stadium for the first Asian Games and the cricket pitch for the first official MCC cricket match in India. Percy-Lancaster also laid out the Sunder Nursery in Delhi, with Humayun’s Tomb as its backdrop. Apart from seeds and saplings, the nursery delivered flowers and fresh fruits and vegetables, on order. In 1949, Percy-Lancaster started a monthly bulletin addressed to householders struggling to create gardens around their new government bungalows. Every issue of the bulletin gave advice about garden work for that particular month. Although written for Delhi, the bulletin was in demand in places as far away as Bengal and Bombay. This book provides his bulletins under one cover for the first time.
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