Foreword by Audrey Hepburn
GARDENS OF THE WORLD: The Art & Practice of Gardening
(Written in the summer of 1990)

"We all have within us a need to create beauty. And we all can in a garden, however small. It is this need which has written the history of gardens. By looking at our world through its gardens today, we reaffirm the simple human capacity to create beauty on this earth.

We are most fortunate to have a truly fine group of writers and photographers dedicate their talents and expertise to Gardens of the World. Each garden included has been carefully selected to illustrate a particular aesthetic, practice or concept.

After years of challenge and reward in my own garden, I greatly looked forward to spending time in some of the world’s most beautiful gardens.
I never imagined they would reveal the diverse range of expression they did.

The garden of old roses at Mottisfont Abbey contrasts delightfully with the orderly abundance of layout of the French rose gardens, yet each garden helps us know a new dimension of this most revered of flowers. The Japanese stroll garden at Shinshin-an in Kyoto challenges our sense of detail and nuance in the natural world. The Italian Renaissance gardens appeal to our sense of order and proportion, even hundreds of years after they were conceived and created. George Washington’s gardens at Mount Vernon are a lovely statement of simplicity and lack of pretense. Tulips in spring eternally bring a sense of renewal and hope; in the soft, blue light of Holland one can glimpse the elements that inspired great Dutch and Flemish painters over two hundred years ago. And mysterious, romantic Ninfa, south of Rome, a country garden so artfully and carefully realized, that one would think nature alone had created it.

In the early planning meetings, when gardens were being selected with Penelope Hobhouse and Elvin McDonald, we realized that it would be simply impossible to include all of the world’s most beautiful gardens in one book or television series. We were, at first, disappointed. But then we were heartened – even in these threatened environmental times, there are more beautiful places on this earth than any one of us may hope to see.

Perhaps if we now take a closer look at our gardens we will better understand how to find a way to save our lovely earth. Have we not lost sight of our only source of life? Or have we at last awakened to the fragility of our beautiful planet?"

Audrey Hepburn and Crew, Filming at Giverny