Lord, Tony 1949-

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LORD, Tony 1949-

PERSONAL:

Born 1949.

ADDRESSES:

Office—c/o Author Mail, Frances Lincoln, Ltd., 4 Torriano Mews, London NW5 2RZ England.

CAREER:

Research chemist; National Trust, England, gardens adviser, 1979-89; Royal Horticultural Society's Plant Finder, principal editor; author, photographer, horticultural consultant, lecturer.

MEMBER:

Royal Horticultural Society (member, Floral A Committee, Trials Committee, Reginald Cory Memorial Cup Committee, Advisory Panel of Nomenclature and Taxonomy; chairman of Floral Trials Subcommittee; chairman of United Kingdom Plant Breeders' Rights Controller's Advisory Panel for Herbaceous Plants), National Trust (Gardens Panel), Horticultural Taxonomy Group.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Garden Writers' Guild "Best General Gardening Book" Award, 1994, for Best Borders; Garden Club Book Selection, 2002, for Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations: The Ultimate Visual Guide to Successful Plant Harmony.

WRITINGS:

(Compiler of Historical Plant Lists) Roy C. Strong, Small Period Gardens: A Practical Guide to Design and Planting, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1992.

Best Borders, Frances Lincoln Ltd. (London, England), 1994, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 1996.

(Photographer) Rosemary Verey, Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden, with watercolors by Hilary Wills, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1995.

Gardening at Sissinghurst, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1996, paperback edition published as Planting Schemes from Sissinghurst, Frances Lincoln Ltd. (London, England), 2003.

(Photographer) George Plumptre, Classic Planting: Featuring the Gardens of Beth Chatto, Christopher Lloyd, Rosemary Verey, Penelope Hobhouse, and Many Others, Ward Lock (London, England), 1998.

Designing with Roses, Trafalgar Square Publishing (North Pomfret, VT), 1999.

Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations: The Ultimate Visual Guide to Successful Plant Harmony, photography by Andrew Lawson, Firefly Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Respected English horticulturalist, photographer, and author Tony Lord began his career as a chemist before becoming a gardens adviser to Britain's National Trust. He studied at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and has served as editor of the Royal Horticultural Society's annual publication the Plant Finder for several years, where he applies codes of nomenclature to more than 70,000 plants.

Lord compiled the plant lists for Roy C. Strong's book Small Period Gardens: A Practical Guide to Design and Planting. He was photographer for Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden and George Plumptre's Classic Planting. Lord has also written four books of his own: Best Borders, which won a Garden Writers' Guild award in 1994; Gardening at Sissinghurst; Designing with Roses; and Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations: The Ultimate Visual Guide to Successful Plant Harmony.

Lord's Best Borders examines the border plants in twelve famous gardens—eleven English and one French—revealing the history of each over generations, showing design plans and color schemes, and explaining at length how to plant and maintain the borders. He has supplied his own brilliantly colored photographs, using a full-page photo to show the whole border and smaller close-ups for detail, with Latin names for flowers and plants. Divided into chapters according to formality, season, and color, the book also includes a list of the best gardens to tour in Britain, Canada, and the United States. Mary Keen, in the Spectator, called it "the definitive 'Border Book'" and "required reading for any serious artist gardener." April Austin, of the Christian Science Monitor, found the book to be "an English garden lover's dream." Carol McCabe, of Early American Life, commented, "There's great stuff here for any gardener who's interested in experimenting with color and design, even in the smallest flower bed." Ann Lovejoy, in Horticulture, praised Best Borders as "one of the most stimulating garden books to appear in recent years." She concluded, "Lord's photographs are worth the price of the book in themselves."

Lovejoy also commended Lord for his photographs in Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden, calling them "delectable." Beth Clewis Crim, in Library Journal, wrote that the book is "brimming with glorious color photographs."

In Gardening at Sissinghurst, Lord goes into rich detail about the history, design, planting, maintenance, and evolution of the famous garden begun by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson in 1930. One of the world's most-visited public gardens today, it is divided into "rooms" that burst with color throughout the growing season. Lord also tells how Pam Schwerdt and Sibylle Kreutzberger, joint head gardeners at Sissinghurst from 1959 to 1991, continued Miss Sackville-West's tradition even after the gardens passed to the National Trust. Christopher Reed, in Horticulture, wrote, "This is a fine book and worth owning whether or not you have been to Sissinghurst or intend to go there. It's a pleasure to read, lovely to look at, and packed with useful information." Carol Cubberly, in

Library Journal, thought it "would be a fine addition to any collection of landscape architecture, horticulture, or gardening." Dora Galitzki, in the New York Times Book Review, commented that Lord looks at the gardens "with as much attention to the 'how' and the 'why' as the 'what.'" Mary Keen, in the Spectator, found the book to be "an analytical and detailed appraisal of the way the place is run," with "something new to learn" on each page.

Designing with Roses is a thorough treatment of the history and art of growing roses, whether in separate beds, in borders, or in mixed gardens. As in his other books, Lord supplies the photographs. Phillip Oliver, in Library Journal, called them "sumptuous" and the book a "worthy treatment" on roses. Carol Bishop Miller, in Horticulture, praised the book's "Pick of the Bunch" list of suggestions for types of roses to grow for any purpose. Miller thought Lord's chapters "deal with using roses intelligently and imaginatively" and offer "delicious combinations of color and texture." Mary Keen, in the Spectator, wrote, "Show me a gardener who shuns roses and they might manage without Dr. Lord. Everyone else will wonder how they coped before this indispensable work appeared."

Lord's Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations, with photos by Andrew Lawson, a Garden Writers' Guild Garden Photographer of the Year, features more than 1,000 plants in some 4,000 beautiful combinations. Lord lists bulbs, annuals, climbers, shrubs and small trees, roses, and perennials. Every aspect of design, planting, and care is covered. Carol Haggas, of Booklist, wrote, "If there is a better organized gardening book available, its existence is unknown." Thoroughly cross-referenced, with hardiness zone maps for Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, the book gives common and botanical names for all plants and uses symbols to show light, moisture, and soil conditions most favorable to each. S. C. Awe, in Choice, called the book "essential for … aspiring gardeners everywhere." Nancy Myers, in Library Journal described it as "a stunning book that is destined to become an essential reference on combining plants."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 2002, Carol Haggas, review of The Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations: The Ultimate Visual Guide to Successful Plant Harmony, p. 465.

Choice, January, 2003, S. C. Awe, review of The Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations, p. 804.

Christian Science Monitor, February 23, 1995, April Austin, review of Best Borders, p. B1.

Early American Life, December, 1995, Carol McCabe, review of Best Borders, p. 57.

Horticulture, Gardening at Its Best, February, 1995, Ann Lovejoy, review of Best Borders, p. 66; March, 1996, Ann Lovejoy, review of Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden, p. 66; October, 1996, Christopher Reed, review of Gardening at Sissinghurst, p. 72; January, 2000, Carol Bishop Miller, review of Designing with Roses, p. 84.

Library Journal, December, 1995, Beth Clewis Crim, review of Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden, pp. 141-142; May 15, 1996, Carol Cubberly, review of Gardening at Sissinghurst, p. 78; August, 1999, Phillip Oliver, review of Designing with Roses, p. 126; October 15, 2002, Nancy Myers, review of The Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations, p. 62.

New York Times Book Review, June 16, 1996, Dora Galitzki, review of Gardening at Sissinghurst, Section 7, p. 19.

Spectator, November 26, 1994, Mary Keen, review of Best Borders, p. 52; December 2, 1995, Mary Keen, review of Gardening at Sissinghurst, pp. 41-42; November 27, 1999, Mary Keen, review of Designing with Roses, p. 57.