Thoughtful Gardening

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Thoughtful Gardening

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Overview

In Thoughtful Gardening, award-winning historian and Financial Times gardening columnist Robin Lane Fox takes readers on a delightful journey through each season of the gardening year. From fending off vine-weevils to visiting Yves Saint Laurent's private gardens in Marrakech, Fox imbues each of his musings with grace, sophistication, and charm. Essential reading for anyone planting a new garden or taking stock of one after several years, Thoughtful Gardening offers expert advice and a touching reminder of the power of art and literature to deepen what we see and experience in nature.

Combining a vast understanding of horticulture with witty and stylish storytelling, these vignettes form -- season by season -- a rich reflection on the lessons, challenges, and joys of life with a green thumb.

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About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465022939
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	11/09/2010
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Robin Lane Fox is an emeritus fellow at New College, Oxford. He's the author of many books on ancient and classical history, including Augustine, Alexander the Great, and The Classical World, which was named one of the Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 2006 by the Washington Post Book World. He lives in Oxford, England.

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Editorial Reviews

In this collection of 80 essays, the Financial Times gardening columnist and Oxford historian presents a convincing case that gardening is about far more than horticultural skill. For Fox, flower gardens are human creations informed by art, history, science, politics, and personality. He takes readers on a year-long tour that combines practical guidance, serious reflection, and humorous provocations. There are essays on individual species, rich with detailed information on exceptional cultivars and best cultivation methods, throughout the year. Other essays reveal Fox's candid, personal impressions of well-known gardeners, including some surprising insights about Christopher Lloyd and Rosemary Verey. He shares his sensitive impressions of distinguished gardens around the globe and the Sisyphean struggles in his own garden. Fox's iconoclastic beliefs and nonorganic methods might alienate some purists, but most gardeners will delight in this rich collection. Opinionated, witty, and erudite, this collection is an example of the best garden writing. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

As the venerated gardening columnist for Britain's Financial Times, acclaimed author, and Garden Master at Oxford University, the acerbic, intuitive, and erudite Fox trots out his own well-honed appreciation for specific cultivars, shares his frustrations with stealthy squirrels and belligerent badgers, and dishes on horticultural divas from Nancy Lancaster to Christopher Lloyd in a seasonal collection of expressive essays in which he travels the world, from his own cozy Cotswold garden to Yves Saint Laurent's opulent Marrakech retreat."—Booklist

"In Thoughtful Gardening we have this thoughtful gardener's musings—wit and wisdom in equal measure—boiled down into its richest essence, as he squires us, passage by passage, through a gardener's year.... This is that rarest of species that makes us not merely keener gardeners, but wiser human beings. If your aim in life is to live it richly—in thought, in habit, in articulation—then grab the book, fluff the cushions and settle in for some necessary winter's reading. Higher praise, we can't imagine."—Chicago Tribune

"For Lane Fox, flower gardens are human creations informed by art, history, science, politics, and personality. He takes readers on a year-long tour that combines practical guidance, serious reflection, and humorous provocations.... Opinionated, witty, and erudite, this collection is an example of the best garden writing."—Publishers Weekly

"This immense wealth of practical information and insight supports the maxim that sometimes devoted gardeners love reading about gardening almost more than the actual act itself."—Booklist, Top 10 Craft and Gardening Books: 2010

"[Thoughtful Gardening] is a quintessential combo-pack of information, brilliant prose, and wonderful morsels of history, botany, and practical experience. It is also a mélange of exceptional humor....engaging travelogue, and memoir. What more could a gardener or reader want?"—Books & Culture

From the Publisher

After writing weekly gardening columns for the Financial Times for 40 years and penning two gardening books (Better Gardening and Variations on a Garden), Lane Fox still has plenty of observations to pass along. Like many wise gardeners, he strongly believes in thoughtful flower gardening—knowing plants' origins and growing them well in places suitable for them and for humans. He takes us through the seasons, sharing experiences from his British home garden, his position as Garden Master at New College, Oxford, and his gardening travels. Primarily known for his readable books on classical history (e.g., The Classical World), he's adept at relating anecdotes about famous gardeners. The appreciation of the arts he interjects throughout this work is unusual in a gardening book and quite pleasurable. VERDICT Overall, the work is more appropriate for knowledgeable American gardeners than beginners. Readers should be forewarned that Lane Fox's methods are not organic. He also does not believe in the garden as wildlife habitat: he gleefully feeds weed-killer-laced milk to pesky rabbits, for example. Recommended for the largest public libraries and extensive gardening collections.—Bonnie Poquette, Milwaukee

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