Out with the Old? - Rated 
Almost all garden historians (and gardeners) will have an old well-thumbed copy of The Oxford Companion to Gardens. It is now twenty years since Susan and Geoffrey Jellicoe, Patrick Goode and Michael Lancaster publication set out to create this monumental work, and five since its last re-issue. Picking up a review copy of this new publication I was both excited and intrigued. Excited at the sheer range of knowledge contained within this richly illustrated hardback and intrigued to find out how the content of this new edition might differ from the original.
Fortunately the editors of the new version have anticipated this very question and provide the reader with answers in their Introduction. This new edition we are told aims to respond to the ever increasing ability to travel to sites in China, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The representation of gardens in the USA has apparently increased fourfold from the original volumes, whilst the increased number of entries on modern gardens redresses what was felt to be an over-emphasis on historic periods. It also responds to different sets of values in its inclusion of amenity gardening, gardens for the disabled, and `land art'. Having said this, some of us will be relieved perhaps to discover that four of the advisory editors (Dr Brent Elliott, Penelope Hobhouse, Sir Roy Strong and Jan Woudtsra) are well respected garden historians complemented by Francis Cabot, and with an immense team of contributors behind them.
But what of the entries themselves? In his recent Daily Telegraph review (17/06/06) Stephen Lacey described The Oxford Companion To The Garden as `a thoroughly entertaining lucky dip'. To a certain extent this must be true of any encyclopaedic companion of any subject area, but the attempt here to combine and include entries both for specifics (places, plants, designers etc), wider issues (climate change, genetic modification), styles (feng shui) and countries (USA) results in a bizarre mixing of scale. Archaeology is sandwiched between arbours and Archbishop's Gardens, whist China keeps company with Chicago public parks and Chinampas (an agricultural system of the Aztecs). Depending on your point of view - and your particular mood when consulting the Companion, this is either delightfully and eccentrically all-embracing or maddeningly eclectic.
What, you find yourself wondering, possessed the editors to include vertugadin (a cushion worn by women on top of their heads which came to mean a sloping lawn), but omit Waterperry, perhaps the most famous gardening school for women? If we have dovecote where is warren; if rockery why not gnome? On the other hand some fortuitous (or otherwise) links may be made between adjacent entries. Ecology of gardens next to the Eden (Garden of); Lindley next to Linnaeus, maze next to meadow. Disappointingly many of the black and white illustrations in the older version have been removed, perhaps to make way for the colour views of existing gardens, and those that are left in appear to have been enlarged from originals to beyond their `in focus' size.
It is always exciting to have a new edition, charting change and development, new findings placed within old settings. Only time and use will tell whether the change of focus towards more modern and world-wide will prove useful to the core readership in this country or is perhaps designed to increase world-wide sales. Widening horizons should be a good thing, but I would be tempted to keep both copies side by side until confident that we are not loosing sight of our past. In particular the note that the editors felt the previous edition focussed too heavily on the history of French gardens rather than current rang an alarm bell. The subtle change from also
So would I recommend this book? If you do not already own a copy of the original Companion, then most definitely and resoundingly yes. If your old copy if well thumbed and loved, than buy the new to give it a well-earned rest and for the joy of accessing new learning. But if you feel that you just need a reference book to look up those occasional (historic) designers and sites, you might consider buying the still obtainable old version (2001 reprint) for £14 (pbk) rather than the new version for £40 (hbk only at present) . Which reminds me . . . they never did explain the change from The Oxford Companion to Gardens to The Oxford Companion to the Garden.
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