I agree with Cicero, who said, “He who has a garden and a library wants for nothing.” My own library has several bookcases overflowing with garden-related books, a number of those by and about gardeners. Some are collections of essays or columns that originally appeared in newspapers or magazines, but I didn’t discover these authors until I read their books. It’s refreshing to read about mistakes other garden lovers have made; it’s exciting to share their successes and discoveries, too.
Although this is a “favorite five” list, it’s in no particular order, and I know I’ll think of others I’ll later kick myself for leaving off the list. I wouldn’t have left out any of these, though—and I've included my favorite excerpts from each. Tell me about your favorites in the comment field below. I’ll see if I can find excerpts to illustrate why I love these books, too. Enjoy!
1) Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols
Cyril bent down, scooped up a pile of dead leaves, and struck a match. There was a splutter, a thread of smoke, and a thin flame crept into the hedge.
Then it happened. There was a sound like the crackle of fireworks, a swift uprush of light, and the whole hedge was ablaze. If it had been saturated in petrol it could not have caught more swiftly, more dramatically. We staggered back aghast; the house was lit in a garish light, the window-panes were painted a lurid red. The heat was appalling.
I have a confused memory of the next five minutes. I seem to recollect a frenzied rush across the lawn for buckets of water, and the agitated figure of Gaskin beating at the hedge with a broom; Cyril, in the meantime, was doing various naval things with grim efficiency and no effect. How could there be any effect? We were caught up in an inferno.
But ten minutes later the hedge had disappeared. Only two of the lower windows were cracked. The front door, doubtless, could be repainted for a fiver. Eventually the scarred lawn would be green again. Sooner or later . . . probably later . . . my blisters would heal.
2) Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichols
Mrs. M. stared at me with undisguised suspicion. 'Rock garden?' she cried. 'What do you mean ... rock garden?'
'By a rock garden,' I replied, 'I mean a garden containing a quantity of rocks.'
'But you haven't any rocks.'
'Not yet ... no.'
'Where are you going to get them?'
I had not the least idea where I was going to get them, so I said, in a sepulchral voice, 'They Are Coming,' rather as though the skies might open at any moment and deluge us with a cascade of boulders.
3) Radical Prunings by Bonnie Thomas Abbott
Q: A few warm days woke up my crocus. The leaves are well out of the ground. What will happen if the weather turns cold again? Will the flowers be ruined? Is there anything I can do? What about the bulbs? Will they be damaged? – Agnes, Lambdon
A: Dear Agnes, Looking now at the snow-crusted crocus in my own garden, I cannot forget the very day their progenitors were planted. I crawled around on hands and knees for hours one October day nearly thirty years ago, making hundreds of holes with a dibble, while my daughter Astrid toddled along after me, placing a crocus bulb in each hole ("Pointy end up, angel, hairy end down, like Daddy").
Norton, my former husband, who had taken to wearing Japanese farmer pants buttoned at the ankles, clogs which never needed hosing off, since he never stepped off the pea-gravel paths, and a straw coolie hat with chin cord which could be pushed back to hang behind his shoulders if he ever happened to work up a sweat, walked up and down the edge of the bed pointing with a bamboo switch, "There. And there. And there." I wondered what it would feel like to plunge a fat dibble into the flesh of a human foot.
4) Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katharine S. White
A more recent sorrow is the sudden death on the terrace of a well-established Jackmani clematis, which turned black overnight just as its big purple blossoms were opening. There are numerous theories in the household about this loss – too heavy a dose of fertilizer, too much watering, too strong a spray drifting over from the nearby rose beds, a disease still undiagnosed.
My own theory is dachshund trouble. Our dachshund is a robin-and-bee hound, not a badger hound. A robust dog, he flings himself with abandon at birds, bees, and fireflies. Once he caught a barn swallow on the wing. Bees swarm all over the clematis bed, attracted by the petunias and violas, the foxgloves and lilies that we grow in front of the clematis, to give the vines the recommended “cool root run.” I think the dachshund mortally wounded the Jackmani vine in a scuffle with a bee, for the other large-flowered clematis vines in that bed are spreading their mauve and mulberry stars all over the cedar windbreak, and the roses are in their second surge of bloom.
5) One Man's Garden by Henry Mitchell
I read somewhere that in tiresome times you should have a mental picture of great beauty that you can conjure up, and the article suggested a seashore or a forest or anything else that reminds you of the world’s harmony and grace. For some, I suppose, a chocolate cake will do. For me, it is the image of a single blue iris.
I had never thought of it before and was a bit surprised that after trying out many mental images I hit on the single iris. Greedy by nature, I would have guessed I’d hit on a whole field of irises or a pond full of water lilies or a long pergola of roses. But when you are quite alarmed and frustrated and worried about a dozen things at once, you need to keep your baggage light. The blue iris has served me well in war and peace.
Aw, heck, I knew five wouldn’t be enough. I can’t leave it at just one Henry Mitchell book -- how could I leave out his The Essential Earthman? And I haven’t even touched on Elizabeth Lawrence or Allen Lacy or Vita Sackville-West or E. A. Bowles' Two Gardeners or My Garden in Autumn and Winter, Gertrude Jekyll's Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden, or Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi (who passed away in May). And so many more books that are now out of print. I hope this will introduce a few of you to these wonderful authors.
Fall is creeping up on us and the cold weather won’t be far behind. Gather a few books to read during the long winter months!
