When I Make a Garden
1936 and 1950 editions
When I Make a Garden - 1936 edition
When Ralph Hancock returned from America in 1935, he had left behind him a legacy of beautiful gardens which he had created for wealthy clients, including JJ Newberry and Lydia Duff Gray Hubbard. He had won numerous medals and cups for his competition gardens. He had designed and constructed extraordinary gardens on the 11th floor of the Rockefeller Center in New York City, and gardens on and between the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise on Fifth Avenue.
On his arrival in America, in the summer of 1930, Ralph had created a pamphlet promoting his garden designs entitled English Gardens in America, promoting himself as gardener to Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria.
Through his time in the States, Ralph was a regular on the lecture circuit and appeared on radio giving gardening advice and tips. He was very good at promoting his services and took advertisements in a number of east coast publications.
On the 11th floor of the Rockefeller Center, Ralph ran the popular Horticultural Halls and promoted tours of his creation, The Gardens of the Nations.
Birds-eye view of the Gardens of the Nations
The Channel Gardens
The Spanish Garden - Gardens of the Nations
Back in England Ralph, not one to miss an opportunity, published an illustrated book of his creations. He had approached G.T. Foulis, a London publisher who was better known for publishing books on motoring than gardens. Nevertheless, publisher and designer worked together and produced an illustrated book containing black and white images of Ralph’s creations.
Hancock himself, in his foreword, confirmed that at least half of the gardens featured were from his time in America. Although very few are identified within the book, painstaking detective work has been able to pin down a handful, as well as those built for the Rockefeller’s. Many are clearly exhibition gardens.
Of the book Ralph is quoted: “A single photograph conveys so much more than pages of written matter. I have, therefore, largely allowed the illustrations to tell their own story, and have merely tried to convey in few words the salient points about each garden, and to give some practical explanations of the fundamental construction and planting principles.”
When I Make a Garden - 1950 edition
In 1950, just a few short months before his premature death, Ralph reprinted When I Make a Garden, updated to include images of his creation for Trevor Bowen, The Derry Gardens.
Ralph also included dozens of images of his award winning gardens from both the Chelsea Flower Show and the Ideal Home Exhibition, as well as creations commissioned through attending and exhibiting at those shows.
In his foreword letter to publisher, Peter Garnett, we get a different view from Ralph of the gardening world. “Since the publication of my first book in 1936, a great deal of water has passed under the bridge, some of it very dirty indeed, and as I stand on that bridge today and watch the still flowing water, I see very few clear sparking patches reflecting the sunlit green of the trees overhead. Rather I see a muddy, turgid and even slimy mass passing beneath me.”
As with the 1936 publication, very few gardens, apart from those well-known in London and New York, are identifiable. We can only guess if they still survive in any form 75 years after Ralph passed-away?
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The 1950 version of the publication is dedicated to the memory of 2nd Lieutenant Denys Hallen Hancock, who lost his life during World War Two.
A Moon Gate made from Cotswold stone
The Tudor Court - Derry Gardens
A rustic house from a Chelsea Flower Show
A unknown house with a Hancock Garden
​The two versions of When I Make a Garden are available to download. The 1936 edition​ is 183 MB whilst the 1950 edition is slightly larger at 218 MB. Both documents are good quality PDFs and give great detail of the images they contain.
1936 edition
1936 dust jacket
1950 edition