Book reviews

Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life: Book Review

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Count me among the legion of Beatrix Potter's fans. I love the illustrations in her children's books, and just as much--perhaps more--I love the language of those stories. It pleased my childish ear--and still does today--that the "friendly sparrows," overhearing Peter's sobs, "implored him to exert himself." And that Mr. McGregor "came up with a [...]

Mentors in the Garden of Life: Book Review

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Gardening teaches you about life, it's often been said, and Colleen Plimpton, in Mentors in the Garden of Life, makes this connection explicit. Each essay in her memoir pairs an influential person in her life with a plant. I always tried to guess how the plant and the person were tied together, and I was [...]

The Roses at the End of the Road: Book Review

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This is Pat Leuchtman. You may know her as the garden blogger Commonweeder. I first met Pat at a garden blogger's fling and chatted with her then and at other garden blogger gatherings. I thought she was a cheerful, conventional New Englander. When I started reading her book, The Roses at the End of the [...]

Slow Flowers: Book Review

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Debra Prinzing's latest book, Slow Flowers: Four Seasons of Locally Grown Bouquets from the Garden, Meadow and Farm, started as a challenge to herself to use only seasonal, locally grown floral elements in her weekly bouquets. (From my perspective that's two challenges in one, because with the many demands on my time, putting together a [...]

The Backyard Parables: Book Review

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"A writer who gardens is sooner or later going to write a book about the subject," opined Eleanor Perenyi. Certainly there is a meditative aspect to many gardening chores that lends itself to interior dialogue. I have had conversations with myself, or with a faraway friend, as I was pulling weeds or raking leaves, "speaking" [...]

Gardening With Tulips: Book Review

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I have clay soil and several kinds of rodents in my garden, and I'd pretty much given up on growing tulips, but Gardening with Tulips by Michael King is making me reconsider. Not just because of the gorgeous color photos on every page, but because it's filled with specific advice on using tulips as an [...]

Two Plant-Related Children’s Books

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I have pretty high standards when it comes to children's books. I don't like them to be preachy or didactic or otherwise disrespectful of the reader, who may or may not be a child. Last night D., my eight-year-old daughter, and I read two children's books by Kathryn O. Galbraith that I received as review [...]

Grow the Good Life: Book Review

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My first reaction upon opening Grow the Good Life: Why a Vegetable Garden Will Make You Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise by Michele Owens was, "Ah, a gardening book without pictures." I am more of an essay person myself, and it seems like it has been a long time since I have found a newly [...]