The Inviting Garden : Gardening for the Senses, Mind, and Spirit
In the grand scheme of things, a garden is a rather quotidian pleasure. Yet Allen Lacy finds a unique sensual delight in the very ordinariness of it: "It is sweet and pleasant to dig in the warm, slightly moist soil, to feel its grit and grain beneath the fingernails.... The rhythmic chore of pulling weeds soothes the soul like a mantra." The stimulation of the senses in the garden is a favorite theme that Lacy, the man who has been called "the dean of American gardeners," celebrates fully inThe Inviting Garden, devoting a chapter to each. Lacy also proffers an affectionate look at gardening as an intellectual pleasure, with a longish but delightful discursion on botanical nomenclature, a slice of historical adventure in the story of how two rather different plants made their way from Asia to North America, a short but sweet chapter on the language of flowers, and the currently obligatory examination of the American suburban landscape. But it's in the chapters on gardening and the spirit that Lacy's charming circuitousness seems most at home: "Horticulture is sometimes described as a science, sometimes as an art, but the truth is that it is neither, although it partakes of both endeavors. It is more like falling in love, something that escapes all logic. There is a moment before one becomes a gardener, and a moment after--with a whole lifetime to keep on becoming a gardener."--Barrie Trinkle