Alexander, Rosemary

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Alexander, Rosemary

PERSONAL:

Born in Bridge of Allan, Scotland. Education: Attended Hammersmith (now University of Greenwich). Hobbies and other interests: Gardening, travel, opera, fishing, food, and wine.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Hampshire, England. Office—English Gardening School, 66 Royal Hospital Rd., London SW3 4HS, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Lecturer, broadcaster, designer, writer, and gardener. Brian Clouston & Partners, London, England, landscape architect assistant, 1975-79; Inchbald School of Design, London, garden designer and course director, 1979-83; English Gardening School, London, founder and principal, 1983—.

MEMBER:

Society of Garden Designers (fellow).

WRITINGS:

(With Tony Aldous and Brian Clouston) Landscape by Design, Heinemann (London, England), 1979.

(With Anthony du Gard Pasley) The English Gardening School: The Complete Master Course on Garden Planning and Landscape Design for the American Gardener, edited by William Bryant Logan, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Karena Batstone) A Handbook for Garden Designers, Ward Lock (London, England), 1994.

The Essential Garden Design Workbook, Timber Press (Portland, OR), 2004.

(With Richard Sneesby) The Garden Maker's Manual, Timber Press (Portland, OR), 2005.

The Essential Garden Maintenance Workbook, Timber Press (Portland, OR), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals; author of correspondence courses.

SIDELIGHTS:

Rosemary Alexander is a British landscape designer and founder of the English Gardening School at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, England, which also has a satellite branch in Russia. She teaches there, offers master classes worldwide, and judges many prestigious flower shows, including the Chelsea Flower show. For eleven years the Scottish-born Alexander lived at Stoneacre, the National Trust property near Maidstone, Kent, England, where she created a world-famous garden. The garden at her home in Hampshire is also much photographed.

Alexander is the author of a number of books, including The Essential Garden Design Workbook, a guide for professionals and serious gardeners. It offers advice on research and design, and other details to help the reader plan an exceptional garden.

Alexander coauthored The Garden Maker's Manual with Richard Sneesby. Here they offer advice on planning a garden from scratch. Architectural elements, such gazebos, arbors, and walkways, are discussed, as well as the host of materials that can be used to construct them.

The Essential Garden Maintenance Workbook is a season-by-season guide to the care of an established garden that notes the skills necessary to maintain its beauty. These extend to carpentry and other talents in addition to horticultural knowledge that includes pruning and soil improvement. The volume includes maps of hardiness zones for the United States and Canada, as well as Great Britain. Booklist contributor Alice Joyce wrote: "Alexander's knowledge and forthright approach make her an excellent instructor."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2005, Alice Joyce, review of The Garden Maker's Manual, p. 1126; September 1, 2006, Alice Joyce, review of The Essential Garden Maintenance Workbook, p. 32.

Bookwatch, March, 2005, review of The Essential Garden Design Workbook.

Library Journal, August 1, 2006, Jennifer Burek Pierce, review of The Essential Garden Maintenance Workbook, p. 112.

Publishers Weekly, June 19, 2006, review of The Essential Garden Maintenance Workbook, p. 59.