SCENT MAGIC

Pimpernel Press, £30 ISBN 978-1910258491

A beautifully romantic book that allows you inside the mind of one of the UK’s most influential garden designers. Reviewer Joshua Sparkes is head gardener at Forde Abbey.

Scent Magic is a collection of notes, memories and beautifully detailed observations of fragrance throughout the gardening year, written by garden designer Isabel Bannerman. It indulges the reader in the power of fragrance and has a beautiful style of writing that I found incredibly immersive and made me want to keep reading on.

It feels as if you are having a conversation with the author, which creates a very personal connection, as she passes on wonderful seasonal poems, historical and botanical facts and gorgeous photos making for such a joyful read.

This has to be one of the most beautifully written pieces I have read in a long time. Focussing on the magic of scent in the garden, it brings to mind the writing of Vita SackvilleWest, who above all gardened for fragrance.

I especially loved the chapter titled Summer Pudding. It

documents one of the greatest garden loves: the rose, noting their individual character, historical journeys and, of course, their unique fragrances being described in great detail. It will certainly have me returning to old favourites to test their scent anew. I never realised Rosa foetida could smell of fresh coriander seeds.

The book is illustrated with gorgeous garden photography by the author and many of Isabel’s striking botanical portraits, which capture petals, leaves, stems in all their boldness and fragility. They are both familiar and otherworldly and are a true celebration of the beauty of plants.

Scent Magic is a wonderfully romantic book and should sit on the book shelf of anyone who likes to sit and bask in the seasons as they pass by. It is a love letter to the easily missed details in the gardening year and shows how plants can seep into every corner of life.