Writing the Garden: A Literary Conversation Across Two Centuries

By: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers

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Synopsis: This is a fascinating exploration of the writings and personalities who have shaped our ideas about gardens and gardening. Gardening, more than most outdoor activities, has always attracted a cult of devotedly literate practitioners - people who like to dig, it appears, also like to write. And many of them write exceedingly well. Focusing on gardeners' words about the art of gardening, "Writing the Garden" brings together a diverse array of authors. For the most part they are not professional landscape designers or how-to horticulturalists, but rather hands-on gardeners who write with their own gardens in full-view. Ranging in time and place from Enlightenment France to modern-day New York City, they invite the reader into the natural world of soil and flowers. Authors discussed include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Gertrude Jekyll, Vita Sackville-West, Russell Page, Lynden Miller, and many more.