1 comments about What Gardens Mean.

1. This book is one of great information and well thought text from a brilliant author. There are books that you will read and not remember the important things needed but then there is this book..... Stephanie puts forth the information in such a format that you can not forget the gripping details. It is a must read book.

No comments about Graham Stuart Thomas' Three Gardens: The Personal Odyssey of a Great Plantsman and Gardener.

No comments about Through the Woods.

1 comments about Grace from the Garden: Changing the World One Garden at a Time.

1. This is a wonderful book to keep by your bedside or to share with friends and family. It's more than a book about gardening, although gardeners everywhere will love it. This book celebrates the human spirit. It shows us the power of a dream, the ability of one person partnering with others to transform her corner of the world. These stories remind us that we all have the power to bring peace and harmony into our world.

   Debra Engle writes in the best tradition of personal essayists. We travel with her as she crosses the country. She transports us to these gardens, evoking their sights, scents and sounds. We sit with her as she talks to an elderly gardener in Huntsville, Alabama, or stride with her through an amazing urban farm in downtown Milwaukee. We feel the individual energy and spirit of these remarkable gardeners who are truly changing the world one garden at a time. And we see those changes through the lens of Engle's understanding of the world as a place where miracles happen every day if we let them.

   I loved this book and highly recommend it. If you'd like to be reminded of all the good there is in the world, or if you just love a good essay, this book will satisfy.

2 comments about Avant Gardening: Ecological Struggle in the City & the World.

1. I found this book, which is an anthology of essays on the subject of the community gardens movement in New York City and other urban areas, to be very informative and a good source of history. Though I do not have an intiuitive understanding of the consciousness of most environmentalists, and I have grown little more than an avocado plant in my lifetime, this book helped me better undertstand the importance of natural surroundings to the urban community. The opposing forces are the indigenous, autonomous, self-help movement that created the gardens on garbage-strewn, abandoned lots during the 1970s; and the government's favoritism toward private developers and other forces of gentrification which threaten the ethnic and class diversity of the city.



2. "Avant Gardening" is an inspirational anthology of essays on the community garden movement. Set mostly in New York City, these essays explore the struggles of the urban poor to reclaim public space, grow wholesome food, build community, and resist gentrification. Readers interested in organic gardening, food security, and urban politics will enjoy this short but informative book. By transforming vacant lots into community gardens, these inner-city farmers are planting not only medicinal herbs, healthy crops, and trees for oxygen; they are planting the seeds of hope and the seeds of change.

No comments about Words For Gardeners.

No comments about The Story of the Privy Garden at Hampton Court.

2 comments about Gardening on Long Island With Irene Virag.

1. While I think this book has some good general topics and it is obvious a lot of work went into it, I was very disappointed in the information included. By its name, I expected it to be gardening topics tailored to Long Island - descriptions of all the native plants, historical information, specific soil conditions, bug problems, differences in climate conditions from the north to south shores, and the like. Don't expect to see this at all. It is a nice gardening book, but the information in it you can find anywhere.



2. I'm thrilled with this book...it's very informative and I like how it is organized by season. The quality of writing and the personal way Irene Virag writes about her gardening life makes it fun to browse through.

3 comments about We Made a Garden (Royal Horticultural Society Classic Garden Writers).

1. WE MADE A GARDEN is a lovely little book by Margery Fish, an "elderly" English lady who with her husband (he who must be obeyed or cleverly deceived it seems) moved to a country manor and converted the mostly lawn areas into gardens of shrubs, flowers, and herbs. First published in the U.K. in the 1950s, the book has been republished as part of the `Modern Library Garden Series' edited by Michael Pollan.

   Fish's little book will be considered a gem by experienced gardeners who can picture the plants she names in the mind's eye, identify with her triumphs and failures, and appreciate a useful clues from an obviously seasoned hand. Garden veterans will also identify with the greedy gardener who never has enough space, the stubborn gardener who plants Nepeta despite it's runaway habits, the recalcitrant gardener who hides the verboten brilliant orange Lychnis chalcedonica at the back of the beds, and the disobedient gardener who leaves many openings in the cemented walkway hubby designed to thwart weeds.

   The book may appear a bit dense to the new gardener as it describes activities such as composing flower beds, creating walkways, and engineering rock gardens with inferior rocks,with no illustrations, other than a few black and white photos-one of Mrs Fish on bended knee at work in her rock garden. However, all is not lost. Determined gardeners unfamiliar with the various plants Mrs Fish names can refer to a nursery catalogue since 60-70 percent of the plants available in the 1950s can be found contemporary mail order publications




2. I wanted to like this book. I just finished the Dudley Warner Book, in the same classic gardening series, which I had savored like a good box of chocolates, rationing out a few pages, each day. But this one--oddly enough--depressed me slightly. It has a sad subplot. You have this stiff upper lip British Matron, who was married to Walter, who oppressed every good idea she had for their garden. She basically isn't able to implement her visions until he dies. But once he's dead you realize, in her humerous complaints, that she misses him. The rest is all gardening, without the breathtaking observations Charles Dudley Warner has, about plants, and without the richness of his language. Fish is an OK writer, but she's not great. I guess Charles Dudley Warner is an impossible act to follow. Warner has one chapter where General Ulysses Grant visits, then he realizes he must burn the chair he sat in. He's unbelievably funny. That book is full of life and a grand vision. Fish's book is somehow claustrophobic. Reading Warner's book, I feel like I'm in a most interesting place filled with surprises, in Fish's book I feel like I'm trapped in a garden, I'd rather exit. I've read about half of her book, and you'd have to pay me to finish it. I frown when I see it on the pile of books behind my comode.



3. Margery Fish must have loved her Walter very, very much to have put up with him all those years. Her account of the garden they made despite each other is one of the great triumphs of the "garden memoir" genre, and vastly more interesting than most such works.

   The book is haunted by the presence of Walter, and his likes and dislikes, and right ways and wrong ways to do anything. You can't help but feel Mrs Fish must have breathed the world's biggest sigh of relief at his passing, since it finally allowed her to get on with her gardening.

   Here's a sample: Walter would smother her seedlings by putting too much manure around HIS roses, he decorated the outbuildings with bought mounted animal trophy heads (until they rotted), and he would stand guard over his wife while she planted dahlias to ensure she did so 'correctly.'

   Not to be missed! (And for others in the just-as-absorbing-when-not-about-the-garden books, you must turn to Beverley Nichols and any of his brilliantly charming works about house or garden).

   Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.

1 comments about Irish Gardens.

1. We had the good fortune to first see Fitzgerald's book while staying at Glin Castle along the River Shannon (Olda Fitzgerald's residence). This garden is one of many spectacular pieces featured. Walking through the actual garden was a walk through a bit of heaven. The photos in the book will serve as a beautiful reminder of what all that rain in Ireland can do to a piece of well cared for earth.

   Gardens of Ireland depicts the lush beauty of other places that will take priority on my "must see" list if I'm lucky enough to return to Ireland. Enjoy!