Christopher Lloyd's Gardening Year
Gardeners move to a different rhythm than the rest of the world, taking  cues from the seasons rather than the dates on a calendar. Most gardeners  remember first and last frost dates more readily than birthdays and mark  Halloween according to which leaves have already fallen rather than by the fact  that it's October 31. This is why books that are written seasonally, month by  month, such asChristopher Lloyd's Gardening Year, are the most useful  and enjoyable of all garden books. They correspond to our own rhythms and to the  way we see the world.Lloyd has lived at Great Dixter in East Sussex, England, all of his life, and he  is now nearly 80. In his new book he tells the story of his garden's emergence  from dormancy in the early spring, its high summer glories, and its gradual,  colorful autumn decline. No one else writes about their garden so intimately,  personally, engagingly, but having written a weekly column forCountry  Lifemagazine since 1963, Lloyd has had plenty of practice. Lloyd is famous  for his tropical garden, as he was one of the first to extensively use exotic  plants in a temperate garden. In his August chapter, he recounts ridding his  garden of roses, replacing them with cannas, bananas, brugmansias, and dahlias  in a riot of hot colors.Another of Lloyd's enthusiasms is cooking from the garden, and he writes of  sowing lettuces successively to provide greens from spring to October and gives  advice about growing fruit and tomatoes. He also loves ornamental grasses, water  gardening, vines, and flower borders. All the monthly tasks and triumphs of  making and caring for a complicated garden are captured here in color  photographs and in Lloyd's opinionated and knowledgeable prose. "I am a bit  snooty about escallonias," he begins, and then goes on to tell which are worth  letting into your garden. This is a book worth letting into your heart and onto  your bookshelf.--Valerie Easton