Gardens are a necessity in their beauty, practicality and ability to renew the spirits of humans and the earth.
With over 80% of Canadians gardening this meditation on gardens will inspire and refresh.
APRIL 2008. Gardening and gardens allow even the most uncreative of us an opportunity to be expressive. The sense of accomplishment that arises from any type of gardening, be it of Zen, English or French influence, or the more practical vegetable garden, draws one away from the hustle and bustle of modernity back to a more tangible and focussed place.
Like gardening, writing is an act of imagination and faith, and so it’s no surprise that many fine writers have turned their hand to the soil and brought their gardens back to the page. This anthology gathers together twenty of the best writers from around the world and across the centuries. The Roman essayist, Pliny, muses on “The Smell of Good Ground,” while Katharine S. White, garden columnist for The New Yorker, takes in the fragrance of roses. Canadian’s such as pioneer Catharine Parr Traill, ex-monk turned West Coast gardening guru Des Kennedy, and poet Patrick Lane reflect on their own gardens and motives for gardening. The last word goes to Gertrude Jeckyll, the grande dame of British garden design, who shares her gardening credo: “The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.”
Co-published with the David Suzuki Foundation, Gardens: A Literary Companion is a part of Greystone Books’s series of Literary Companions. Also look for Deserts: A Literary Companion (April 2008), edited by Wayne Grady.
MERILYN SIMONDS is the author of twelve books, including one on salad gardening. Her novel The Convict Lover was a finalist for the Governor General’s award. Her most recent novel, The Holding, was selected a New York Times Editors’ Choice. She lives near Kingston, Ontario, where she works twenty-six garden beds.
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