At the turn
of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly, neglected and unloved 10-year-old
girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her and make an
effort to ignore the girl. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who
allow her to become spoiled, aggressive, and self-centered. After a cholera
epidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone
in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family
in India before she is sent to Yorkshire, in England, to live with Archibald
Craven, a wealthy, hunchbacked uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated
house, Misselthwaite Manor.
At first,
Mary is as obnoxious and sour as ever. She dislikes her new home, the people
living in it, and most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. However, a
good-natured maid named Martha Sowerby tells Mary about her aunt, the late
Lilias Craven, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses.
Mrs Craven died after an accident in the garden, and the devastated Mr. Craven
locked the garden and buried the key. Mary becomes interested in finding the
secret garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon
she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a
friendly robin redbreast. Her health and attitude improve with the bracing
Yorkshire air, and she grows stronger as she explores the moor and plays with a
skipping rope that Mrs Sowerby buys for her. Mary wonders about both the secret
garden and the mysterious cries that echo through the house at night.
As Mary
explores the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed
soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden and eventually the door to
the garden itself. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with
Dickon, her 12-year-old brother who spends most of his time out on the moors.
Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with
animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells
him about the secret garden.
One night,
Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house.
She is startled when she finds a boy her age named Colin, who lives in a hidden
bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Mr
and Mrs Craven, and that he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem which
precludes him from walking and causes him to spend most of his time in bed.
Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with
stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary
finally confides that she has access to the secret garden, and Colin asks to
see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret
garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for years.
While in
the garden, the children look up to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall
on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children in the secret garden, he
admits that he believed Colin to be a cripple. Colin stands up from his chair
and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin and Mary
soon spend almost every day in the garden, sometimes with Dickon as company.
The children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from
the other staff, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad. As
Colin's health improves, his father sees a coinciding increase in spirits,
culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden.
When he receives a letter from Mrs Sowerby, he takes the opportunity finally to
return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears
voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in
full bloom, and his son healthy, having just won a race against the other two
children. The servants watch, stunned, as Mr Craven and Colin walk back to the
manor together.
Why did
Marcel Proust have bonsai beside his bed? What was Jane Austen doing, coveting
an apricot? How was Friedrich Nietzsche inspired by his thought tree'? In
Philosophy in the Garden, Damon Young explores one of literature's most
intimate relationships: authors and their gardens. For some, the garden
provided a retreat from workaday labour; for others, solitude's quiet counsel.
For all, it played a philosophical role: giving their ideas a new life.
Philosophy in the Garden reveals the profound thoughts discovered in parks,
backyards, and pot-plants. It does not provide tips for mowing overgrown couch
grass, or mulching a dry Japanese maple. It is a philosophical companion to the
garden's labours and joys.
REVIEWS
[A] fascinating journey through the lives and
creativity of writers ... It is an intimate, charming book.' * Sensibilities:
The Journal of the Jane Austen Society of Australia * An absolute joy of a book
- I couldn't put it down. Its prose is as careful and lovely as a beautifully
tended garden.' -- Nikki Gemmell, columnist for The Australian and author of
Honestly [E]njoyable and erudite.' * Los Angeles Review of Books * [W]ith his
vivid, critical, and, sometimes loving, attention to detail, he brings to new
life writers and philosophers that anyone with a liberal arts education thought
they already knew ... Young's enthusiasm, compassion, and moments of personal
insight are infectious.' * Island * Young has managed the difficult task of
creating an academically rigorous work while maintaining a light and engaging
tone throughout the book, which is actually a highly intellectual look at the
complex relationship between humanity and nature.' * Voice * [T]houghtful and
highly entertaining.' * Limelight * [T]ake the plunge: the writing is fresh,
the observations discursive, and the garden ... placed front and centre.' *
Australian Garden History * Young helps readers reflect on the value of the
garden beyond a place to hold a backyard barbecue ... [He] writes engagingly,
showing off his skills as a storyteller ... [A]n intriguing little book.' *
Weekly Times * [M]ore my kind of gardening' than the digging type ...
Particularly interesting is his account of Jane Austen's creative relationship
with her Hampshire gardens.' * The Lady * [Philosophy in the Garden] is a
stimulating read where individual truths may well bloom ... [T]his volume is
packed with brilliant literary info.' * The West Australian * Reading this book
is like strolling in a luxuriant garden with an erudite friend, although one of
a literary rather than horticultural bent ... Think of this engaging little
book ... as a philosophical primer, an approachable introduction to ideas about
gardens and the natural world.' * The Age * Young is an engaging writer. His
technique is fluent and stylish and never marred by cliches or cliched
thinking. He is sincere, a great relief from the ocean of irony in which we
live, and intellectually questing, a relief from that other ocean of schmaltzy
platitude.' * The Australian * This beautiful looking book is a wonderfully
refreshing mix of literary gossip, historical exposition and philosophical
reflection, and I never wanted it to end.' -- Walter Mason, author of
Destination Saigon I found it utterly engaging and most illuminating. His style
is very readable and full of wit and personality.' * Kate Forsyth, author of
The Wild Girl * I've been looking forward to Damon Young's [Philosophy in the
Garden] ... all year. Part philosophy lesson, part literary companion, it's a
contemplative stroll through writers' relationships with their gardens.' *
Charlotte Wood, author of Animal People * [T]hought provoking indeed.' * The
Good Book Guide * [T]hought-provoking ... fine book.' * Gardens Illustrated *
Young writes with a delightful combination of humour and insight.' * The
Literary Review * A brilliant philosophical and literary meditation that helps
us rethink our relationship with the natural world - and with ourselves.' *
Roman Krznaric, author of Empathy * A gentle dig for ideas about how to live -
this book will grow your mind and put a glow in your cheeks.' * Deborah Levy,
author of Swimming Home * Like a garden coming into spring ... tremendous
vistas of thought.' * The Daily Telegraph * [S]prightly and stimulating.' * The
Spectator * Erudite, yet witty and accessible, [Philosophy in the Garden] is
intellectual history at its most completely pleasurable.' * Oliver Burkeman,
author of The Antidote * This is a gardening book that takes readers not on a
walk around great estates but on a tour of great minds ... It's a lovely
extension on the notion that gardens make you contemplative and in working with
the soil you see life's big picture.' * The Daily Telegraph 
Top 10
books about gardens
From
theatres of social snobbery to fiery manifestos for rewilding, these volumes
show that gardening can be sexy, scary and sometimes scandalous
Vivian
Swift
Wed 20 Jul
2016 15.28 BSTLast modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 12.50 GMT
The problem
with most garden books is that they are written by gardeners. Gardeners have a
habit of filling pages and pages with homework-sounding words such as
rhizosphere and loamy and pH, which isn’t even a word. It all sounds as
exciting as algebra.
The other
problem with garden books is that so many of them blabber on about an idea of
nature that came into fashion in the time of hoop skirts and whalebone corsets.
I’m talking about the ideology of the famed 19th-century conservationist John
Muir, who wrote about wilderness as a place “to play in and pray in, where
nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the soul”. I want to read about
this fey “sacred space” concept of nature about as much as I want to slap on a
lace bonnet and ride side-saddle.
Wouldn’t it
be great to read a garden book that didn’t have the personality of a maiden
aunt? Yes, it would! And that’s why I, a dedicated non-gardener, wrote Gardens
of Awe and Folly: to show that gardens aren’t demure! Gardens are sexy, and
scary, sometimes even scandalous, and best of all, gardens are the perfect
settings to serve up ice-cold cocktails and red-hot gossip … and any one of
these books is the equivalent of that kind of garden party.
1.
Rambunctious Garden by Emma Marris
This book
will set your hair on fire if you are the least bit sentimental about the
sanctity of capital-n Nature. Marris, a science journalist and metaphorical
flame-thrower (from Seattle), has taken the gutsy stance that the environmental
purity imagined by John Muir and his ilk vanished about 6,000 years ago with
the planting of the first gardens in Mesopotamia, and can’t be restored.
Happily, she offers a new, improved nature with her stories of radical
rewilding, human-assisted migration of flora and fauna, and – gasp – the ecological
godsend of invasive and exotic species. Oh yes, she goes there.
2. The
Gardener of Versailles: My Life in the World’s Grandest Garden by Alain Baraton
Baraton has
been tending the Grand Parc de Versailles for more than 40 years, beginning as
a ditch-digging gardener’s assistant in 1976 and, since 1982, as its
gardener-in-chief. In this charmingly ardent memoir, Baraton spices things up
with advice on the gardens’ best hidden corners for trysting, lush descriptions
of nightfall in the royal groves, and soulful odes to the mighty fallen (trees,
kings, and previous gardeners-in-chief). Baraton is proof that there is such a
thing as a debonair gardener.
3. Sunlight
on the Lawn by Beverley Nichols
Any of the
dozen garden books written between 1932 and 1968 by England’s most lovable snob
would have been a perfect fit for this list. But Sunlight on the Lawn, from
1956, stands out for having the tastiest horticultural titbits dished up with
the most generous helpings of the well-mannered malice at which the British
gentry excels. Here is the ever-so-genteel Rose, thrusting honey-dipped insults
at Miss Emily for her weeding methods, who parries with awe-inspiring sarcasm.
Behind their backs is Mr Nichols, who lives for such scandals, stirring things
up with his pronouncements on vulgar garden designs and tacky floral trends.
Delicious.
4. The
Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Here is a
garden that is not only scary, but lethal. You probably already know the story
of the orphaned Mary Lennox, “the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen”,
and her rehabilitation of the spooky walled-in garden with the killer tree (the
one the late Mrs Craven fell out of). But you probably did not know that
Hodgson Burnett wrote this iconic English fable in the US, in her home on Long
Island, less than three miles from where I live. This fact inspired me to
believe that great garden writers can come from anywhere, even one’s own dull
suburb.
5. The
Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Another
classic tale from Long Island. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in exile from his
native France at the outbreak of the second world war, found himself living here,
“a haven for writing, the best place I have ever had anywhere in my life”. And
voila: the tale of the Rose, beloved of the title’s sensitive alien, was born.
Even more heartening to me, as a self-taught watercolourist, is Saint-Exupéry’s
artwork, which is, frankly, terrible, and yet beloved around the world.
6. Second
Nature: A Gardener’s Education by Michael Pollan
Pollan
writes about dirt (dirt!) and is utterly fascinating, even to a reader who has
previously stated that this is the exact subject that she most dreads in garden
books. That’s because dirt, like every other topic Pollan addresses (roses,
weeds, trees, etc), is only the jumping-off point for a flight of fancy that
alights on political history, popular culture and class distinctions, all the
while being both highly entertaining and deeply thought-provoking. Surprise
surprise, there is a whole lot more to a garden than its planting list. When I
wrote Gardens of Awe and Folly this is the kind of value-added storytelling
that I did my best to emulate, because outright plagiarism is wrong.
7. Green
Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi
OK, this is
the most boring title ever for a garden book. Which means that you will be all
that more pleased by the verve and eccentricity of its author. As the American
ex-wife of a Romanian baron, Perenyi has gardened in both the old and new
worlds, in war and poverty, peace and affluence, and, lastly, Connecticut. Is
she cultured and crotchety? Digressive and droll? Brainy and brash? Is she
ever. Just read the chapter Onions, and I guarantee you will be as smitten with
the lady as she is with scallions. One of my most treasured possessions is a
photograph of Perenyi seated in her backyard parterre, a highball in one hand
and a cigarette in the other. She lived to be 91, which goes to show how
healthful the gardening lifestyle must be.
8. Our Life
in Gardens by Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd
Nothing
could convince me that I might be missing something by not having a garden of
my own – except maybe this book. This cosy memoir shows the authors to be the
most companionable and down-to-earth of garden world paragons. Gazing at a
portrait of artist Rubens Peale, the authors observe that the subject is
holding one of the most beautiful flowerpots they’ve ever seen. Well, if
puttering about in a herbaceous border would make me half as refined, witty,
and personable, then I’d gladly grab a hoe and have at it.
9. The
Potting-Shed Papers by Charles Elliott
I began my
education as a garden writer by devouring this collection of 31 essays on
gardens, gardeners, and garden history. Elliott roams to wherever his
hyperactive curiosity takes him, from the invention of the lawnmower in England
to the discovery of the blue poppy in China, with stops in the gardening
cultures of Holland and Japan and, oh, almost everywhere else. Read this book
and learn important stuff about the gardening mindset, such as how much
determination it takes to grow a California sequoia in Gloucestershire, and how
nutty and wonderful it is that anyone ever tried to do it in the first place.
10. The New
Sylva: A Discourse of Forest and Orchard Trees for the 21st Century by Gabriel
Hemery, illustrated by Sarah Simblet
Lucky you,
Guardian readers, to have been born at the right time to feast your eyes on this
highly anticipated followup to the illustrious Sylva of 1664! As in the
original, this is an exhortation to Britons to cherish and maintain their
woodlands, with Hemery writing movingly about forests as both artefacts of
civilisation and celebrations of tree-dom in your mystically green and
astoundingly pleasant land.
At the turn
of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly, neglected and unloved 10-year-old
girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her and make an
effort to ignore the girl. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who
allow her to become spoiled, aggressive, and self-centered. After a cholera
epidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone
in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family
in India before she is sent to Yorkshire, in England, to live with Archibald
Craven, a wealthy, hunchbacked uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated
house, Misselthwaite Manor.
At first,
Mary is as obnoxious and sour as ever. She dislikes her new home, the people
living in it, and most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. However, a
good-natured maid named Martha Sowerby tells Mary about her aunt, the late
Lilias Craven, who would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses.
Mrs Craven died after an accident in the garden, and the devastated Mr. Craven
locked the garden and buried the key. Mary becomes interested in finding the
secret garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon
she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a
friendly robin redbreast. Her health and attitude improve with the bracing
Yorkshire air, and she grows stronger as she explores the moor and plays with a
skipping rope that Mrs Sowerby buys for her. Mary wonders about both the secret
garden and the mysterious cries that echo through the house at night.
As Mary
explores the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed
soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden and eventually the door to
the garden itself. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with
Dickon, her 12-year-old brother who spends most of his time out on the moors.
Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with
animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells
him about the secret garden.
One night,
Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house.
She is startled when she finds a boy her age named Colin, who lives in a hidden
bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins, Colin being the son of Mr
and Mrs Craven, and that he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem which
precludes him from walking and causes him to spend most of his time in bed.
Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with
stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary
finally confides that she has access to the secret garden, and Colin asks to
see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret
garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for years.
While in
the garden, the children look up to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall
on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children in the secret garden, he
admits that he believed Colin to be a cripple. Colin stands up from his chair
and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin and Mary
soon spend almost every day in the garden, sometimes with Dickon as company.
The children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from
the other staff, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad. As
Colin's health improves, his father sees a coinciding increase in spirits,
culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden.
When he receives a letter from Mrs Sowerby, he takes the opportunity finally to
return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears
voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in
full bloom, and his son healthy, having just won a race against the other two
children. The servants watch, stunned, as Mr Craven and Colin walk back to the
manor together.
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