The Writer in the Garden
Not the least of the charms of this collection is that it is printed on quality paper, with delightful line drawings, and is just the right size to encourage the reader to take it in hand and turn the pages--which they will surely want to do once they have dipped into any chapter, where they will  find some of the finest garden writing of the last hundred years. The famous writers of the past, like Vita Sackville-West, Gertrude Jekyll, Elizabeth von Arnim (author ofEnchanted April), and Beverley Nichols rub shoulders with the garden columnists and book authors of today, such as longtimeWashington Postcolumnist Henry Mitchell, Christopher Lloyd, and Ken Druse.As all gardeners know, thinking about plants and gardens leads one to speculate about life, love, triumph and despair, obsession, and death. These authors cover it all, not just in metaphor, although they are expert at  the well-turned phrase and the classic image, but in garden practicalities, too. Perhaps only in the best garden essay can the design of shovels, the number of worms in the soil, and raves about the newest kind of perennial co-exist comfortably with ruminations on mortality, the soul, and the nature of beauty. Lest this sound too serious, all is laced with humor; Henry Mitchell's hounds lie about the garden beds, crushing his latest peony, and Charles Kuralt complains about how he missed his favorite daffodil when CBS News had the nerve to send him to Moscow in April for an unfortunately scheduled summit conference."Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination," said Alice Morse Earle in 1897. We are fortunate that these writers had enough imagination to both garden and to write about it and that Jane Garmey had  the imagination to gather such a variety of well-chosen garden voices.--Valerie Easton