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It’s perhaps not surprising that Dark has been dubbed the “millennial Monty”, given the way he interweaves personal narrative with an encyclopaedic knowledge of horticultural and social history and strong views on how gardens should be made.
“Lawns suffer terribly from being the default,” he writes. “They are unthinkingly applied to back gardens from fence to fence in a way that is both unsettling and uninviting. No one wants to lie on the ground between two stark verticals – you might as well be in the back of a lorry”.
Verbena bonariensis, for Dark, is “salt in horticulture’s cuisine, an enhancer of flavours”. In front gardens, it should be set as close to the road as possible, so that anyone looking in does so “through a jewelled veil”.
His range of references is broad (the reader comes across Tennyson, Roman history, Edith Wharton, Louise Glück, Victorian gardening magazines and the most obscure of botanists along the way), partly the result of hours spent at the London Metropolitan Archives. In each chapter Dark spirals out from the starting point of one ordinary, often overlooked plant into a sequence of mind-expanding associations.
So what led a 21-year-old, fresh from studying history at the University of Bristol, to immerse himself in the world of horticulture 15 years ago, and to become so deeply fascinated by the human stories behind the plants on our doorsteps? “I was quite lucky. Early on, I experienced a catastrophic failure to thrive in an office environment. Within three months, I’d realised I didn’t really want the corporate life, and that it didn’t really want me either,” he says.
“I wanted a tan and an outside job for the summer, and realised that what I really wanted to do was train as a gardener. A lot of people have this epiphany in their 30s and 40s, but I was fortunate enough to have it in my early 20s.” Dark enrolled at Capel Manor College, before completing a traineeship at the Garden Museum and an MA in Garden and Landscape History at the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research.
Dark’s first gardening clients were oligarchs – “some of the richest people in the world. One of which has recently had his assets frozen. It was useful to have access to an unlimited budget so early in my career. It made me realise early on that there is more to a garden than the money at your disposal. I find gardens interesting because of their connection to people.
“Working for someone who is completely absent and has a portfolio of houses across the world, and doesn’t even know what is in his garden, is soulless.
“After that, I went to Chiswick House and Gardens where all the volunteers really cared. It was much more satisfying.
“I like the front gardens of the Grove not because they’re epitomes of horticulture, but because the plants are chosen by someone for a reason. Front gardens display the personal choices and tastes of their owners for all to see and speculate on.”
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