This is a biography of Gertrude Jekyll - artist, craftswoman, garden designer, photographer, businesswoman and writer of prose. The book attempts to explain the forces behind Jekyll's world, exploring the contradictions of a single woman who overcame entrenched social and professional hurdles. More than 50 years after her death in 1932, Jekyll is recognized as the most influential gardener of the last 100 years. Her works are read with consummate interest at home, and in the US her following is without parallel in the gardening world. People are particularly interested in her working partnership with Lutyens and associate her with herbaceous borders and soft flower shades. Gardening for her was an art, and her philosophy made life and art inseparable. Through unity of house, garden and country side, she aimed to create surroundings which nurtured body and soul in the manner of an 18th-century landscape park. Her intuitive understanding of human needs made her an inspired creative influence in the home and its environment.