Pavord married Trevor Ware on 18 June 1966. The couple lived on a sailing barge on the Thames at Shepperton, gardening the 80 feet of riverbank that came with the mooring. The barge is where her first daughter was born. [6] She has three daughters, Oenone (b. 1967), Vanessa (b. 1970) and Tilly (b. 1974); and 12 grandchildren. [4] [1] Three - There were occasions when Ms. Pavord just listed books, catalogs, people, locations, etc and it's as interesting as reading a phone book. I understand she was being detailed and complete but it was . . . . just a section to jump over. Today, tulips are grown commercially in Japan, Washington State, Chile, Australia, Tasmania, the North Island of New Zealand, South Africa, and of course, the Netherlands. The devotees are trying to re-discover some of the antique versions of these lovely flowers but it's mostly known from the amateurs and general public that desire to have tulips available each spring.

The bulbs were sold by weight, and like carats of diamonds and troy ounces of gold, tulip bulbs were weighed in their own special units, called azen. A still life of flowers painted by one of Holland's finest painters was less expensive than a fine tulip, and even after prices collapsed, rare tulips remained luxury items that only the wealthy could afford. Pavord was born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, the daughter of headmaster Arthur Vincent Pavord, a best-selling garden author (d. 1989), and Welsh teacher Christabel Lewis (d. 1978). [1] [4] The family had neither TV nor a car and she spent many hours roaming the Welsh mountains with her brother. As a child she loved radio jazz and dancing. [5] She attended Abergavenny High School for Girls the University of Leicester and graduated in 1962 with a B.A.(honours) degree in English. [1] I suppose," says Anna Pavord, "there must be one or two people in the world who choose not to like tulips." There are more, however, who think of tulips as common and cliché — unsubtle masses of monochromatic color splashed across springtime flamboyantly as the braid on a hotel doorman's uniform. Give the flower a chance. Under Pavord's guidance, even jaundiced critics will come to appreciate this blossom, "a flower that has carried more political, social, economic, religious, intellectual and cultural baggage than any other on earth." I don't particularly care which English man had which tulip in his garden if that's the only information you're going to provide. I want to learn about the impact that the tulip had on English society when it was first introduced.

The tulip's ancestors came from somewhere in Turkey or Central Asia, where more than a hundred species grow wild. The flower was domesticated by the Ottomans, who planted vast numbers of bulbs in their palace gardens and were as fascinated by rare and exotic tulips as the Dutch at the height of tulip mania. The Turks, who favored tulips with long, narrow flowers and dagger-shaped petals, painted them on pottery and glazed tiles, embroidered them on textiles, and even had a special vase, the laledan, for displaying single blossoms. Anna Pavord's now classic, internationally bestselling sensation, The Tulip, is not a gardening book. It is the story of a flower that has driven men mad. Greed, desire, anguish and devotion have all played their part in the development of the tulip from a wild flower of the Asian steppes to the worldwide phenomenon it is today. No other flower carries so much baggage; it charts political upheavals, illuminates social behaviour, mirrors economic booms and busts, plots the ebb and flow of religious persecution. It is vastly interesting if you want to know more about the history of tulips but be prepared to be overwhelmed with details.

The mania for tulips — financial and aesthetic — that swept Holland in the 1630s is only a small part of this lavishly illustrated and wonderfully readable tale. Pavord, a garden writer who lives in Dorset, England, discusses tulips in the wild (progenitors of the domesticated tulip) and describes the whimsies of fashion that led new varieties to supplant older ones. She shows tulips in painting and sculpture, tells how the flowers were nurtured and displayed, and reveals how the Dutch — fine growers and even better salesmen — captured the modern market for tulip bulbs. It is a capacious, compelling story that you don't have to be a gardener to enjoy.

If you are planting them with bulbs, plant wallflowers first, bulbs after, to avoid accidentally spearing bulbs hidden underground. If you are buying wallflower plants rather than growing your own, remember that what you buy in autumn is what you will see in spring. If you buy measly plants, they will still be measly, though in flower in spring: little extra growing takes place during winter. Look for plants that have rounded, well-developed heads of foliage rather than single stems, and get them into the ground as soon as you can. Height depends to a certain extent I feel like this book is a great example of what non-history people think history is like: a list of dry historical facts about tulips with no effort made to connect these facts to larger societal trends in the period. Additionally, the author didn't bother to translate the French passages of sources that she consulted, which thankfully I could read, but also don't assume that your readers have French as a second language.