Rhapsody in Green: A Writer, an Obsession, a Laughably Small Excuse for a Vegetable Garden

Rhapsody in Green: A Writer, an Obsession, a Laughably Small Excuse for a Vegetable Garden

Author: Charlotte Mendelson

Publisher: Octopus Books

Published: 2018-07-16

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0857836366

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'Charming, inspiring, uplifting ... pure lovely,' - Marian Keyes 'Read Rhapsody in Green. A novelist's beautiful, useful essays about her tiny garden.' - India Knight 'Glorious...for anyone who loves fruit, vegetables, herbs and language. It makes you see them with new eyes.' - Diana Henry 'A witty account of 'extreme allotmenteering' for all obsessive gardeners' - Mail on Sunday 'An extremely entertaining and inspiring story of one woman's passionate transformation of a small, irregular shaped urban garden into a bountiful source of food.' - Woman & Home 'A gardening book like no other, this is the author's 'love letter' to her garden. She relays warm and witty stories about the trials and tribulations throughout her gardening year.' - Garden News '...this inspirational, funny book, written by someone who hankers after a homesteader's lifestyle, will make you look at even your window box in a new, more productive light.' - The Simple Things Gardening can be viewed as a largely pointless hobby, but the evangelical zeal and camaraderie it generates is unique. Charlotte Mendelson is perhaps unusually passionate about it. For despite her superficially normal existence, despite the fact that she has only six square metres of grotty urban soil and a few pots, she has a secret life. She is an extreme gardener, an obsessive, an addict. And like all addicts, she wants to spread the joy. Her garden may look like a nasty drunk old man's mini-allotment, chaotic, virtually flowerless, with weird recycling and nowhere to sit. When honoured friends are shown it, they tend to laugh. However, it is actually a tiny jungle, a minuscule farm, a wildly uneconomical experiment in intensive edible cultivation, on which she grows a taste of perhaps a hundred kinds of delicious fruits and odd vegetables. It is a source of infinite happiness and deep peace. It looks completely bonkers. Arguably, it's the most expensive, time-consuming, undecorative and self-indulgent way to grow a salad ever invented, but when tired or sad or cross it never fails to delight.


Book Synopsis Rhapsody in Green: A Writer, an Obsession, a Laughably Small Excuse for a Vegetable Garden by : Charlotte Mendelson

Download or read book Rhapsody in Green: A Writer, an Obsession, a Laughably Small Excuse for a Vegetable Garden written by Charlotte Mendelson and published by Octopus Books. This book was released on 2018-07-16 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Charming, inspiring, uplifting ... pure lovely,' - Marian Keyes 'Read Rhapsody in Green. A novelist's beautiful, useful essays about her tiny garden.' - India Knight 'Glorious...for anyone who loves fruit, vegetables, herbs and language. It makes you see them with new eyes.' - Diana Henry 'A witty account of 'extreme allotmenteering' for all obsessive gardeners' - Mail on Sunday 'An extremely entertaining and inspiring story of one woman's passionate transformation of a small, irregular shaped urban garden into a bountiful source of food.' - Woman & Home 'A gardening book like no other, this is the author's 'love letter' to her garden. She relays warm and witty stories about the trials and tribulations throughout her gardening year.' - Garden News '...this inspirational, funny book, written by someone who hankers after a homesteader's lifestyle, will make you look at even your window box in a new, more productive light.' - The Simple Things Gardening can be viewed as a largely pointless hobby, but the evangelical zeal and camaraderie it generates is unique. Charlotte Mendelson is perhaps unusually passionate about it. For despite her superficially normal existence, despite the fact that she has only six square metres of grotty urban soil and a few pots, she has a secret life. She is an extreme gardener, an obsessive, an addict. And like all addicts, she wants to spread the joy. Her garden may look like a nasty drunk old man's mini-allotment, chaotic, virtually flowerless, with weird recycling and nowhere to sit. When honoured friends are shown it, they tend to laugh. However, it is actually a tiny jungle, a minuscule farm, a wildly uneconomical experiment in intensive edible cultivation, on which she grows a taste of perhaps a hundred kinds of delicious fruits and odd vegetables. It is a source of infinite happiness and deep peace. It looks completely bonkers. Arguably, it's the most expensive, time-consuming, undecorative and self-indulgent way to grow a salad ever invented, but when tired or sad or cross it never fails to delight.

Orwell's Roses

Orwell's Roses

Author: Rebecca Solnit

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-10-18

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0593083377

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Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography “An exhilarating romp through Orwell’s life and times and also through the life and times of roses.” —Margaret Atwood “A captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker.” —Claire Messud, Harper's “Nobody who reads it will ever think of Nineteen Eighty-Four in quite the same way.” —Vogue A lush exploration of politics, roses, and pleasure, and a fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener whose political writing was grounded by his passion for the natural world “In the spring of 1936, a writer planted roses.” So be-gins Rebecca Solnit’s new book, a reflection on George Orwell’s passionate gardening and the way that his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and on the intertwined politics of nature and power. Sparked by her unexpected encounter with the roses he reportedly planted in 1936, Solnit’s account of this overlooked aspect of Orwell’s life journeys through his writing and his actions—from going deep into the coal mines of England, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, critiquing Stalin when much of the international left still supported him (and then critiquing that left) to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. Through Solnit’s celebrated ability to draw unexpected connections, readers are drawn onward from Orwell‘s own work as a writer and gardener to encounter photographer Tina Modotti’s roses and her politics, agriculture and illusion in the USSR of his time with forcing lemons to grow in impossibly cold conditions, Orwell’s slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica, Jamaica Kincaid’s examination of colonialism and imperialism in the flower garden, and the brutal rose industry in Colombia that supplies the American market. The book draws to a close with a rereading of Nineteen Eighty-Four that completes Solnit’s portrait of a more hopeful Orwell, as well as offering a meditation on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.


Book Synopsis Orwell's Roses by : Rebecca Solnit

Download or read book Orwell's Roses written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography “An exhilarating romp through Orwell’s life and times and also through the life and times of roses.” —Margaret Atwood “A captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker.” —Claire Messud, Harper's “Nobody who reads it will ever think of Nineteen Eighty-Four in quite the same way.” —Vogue A lush exploration of politics, roses, and pleasure, and a fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener whose political writing was grounded by his passion for the natural world “In the spring of 1936, a writer planted roses.” So be-gins Rebecca Solnit’s new book, a reflection on George Orwell’s passionate gardening and the way that his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and on the intertwined politics of nature and power. Sparked by her unexpected encounter with the roses he reportedly planted in 1936, Solnit’s account of this overlooked aspect of Orwell’s life journeys through his writing and his actions—from going deep into the coal mines of England, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, critiquing Stalin when much of the international left still supported him (and then critiquing that left) to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. Through Solnit’s celebrated ability to draw unexpected connections, readers are drawn onward from Orwell‘s own work as a writer and gardener to encounter photographer Tina Modotti’s roses and her politics, agriculture and illusion in the USSR of his time with forcing lemons to grow in impossibly cold conditions, Orwell’s slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica, Jamaica Kincaid’s examination of colonialism and imperialism in the flower garden, and the brutal rose industry in Colombia that supplies the American market. The book draws to a close with a rereading of Nineteen Eighty-Four that completes Solnit’s portrait of a more hopeful Orwell, as well as offering a meditation on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.

Life in the Garden

Life in the Garden

Author: Penelope Lively

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-06-12

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0525558381

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From the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author, reflections on gardening, art, literature, and life Penelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. "Her body of work proves that certain themes never go out of fashion," writes the New York Times Book Review, as true of this beautiful volume as of the rest of the Lively canon. Now in her eighty-fourth year, Lively muses, "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."


Book Synopsis Life in the Garden by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Life in the Garden written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author, reflections on gardening, art, literature, and life Penelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. "Her body of work proves that certain themes never go out of fashion," writes the New York Times Book Review, as true of this beautiful volume as of the rest of the Lively canon. Now in her eighty-fourth year, Lively muses, "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."

Gardens of the Moon

Gardens of the Moon

Author: Steven Erikson

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2004-06-01

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1429926589

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Vast legions of gods, mages, humans, dragons and all manner of creatures play out the fate of the Malazan Empire in this first book in a major epic fantasy series from Steven Erikson. The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen's rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins. For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze. However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand... Conceived and written on a panoramic scale, Gardens of the Moon is epic fantasy of the highest order--an enthralling adventure by an outstanding new voice. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.


Book Synopsis Gardens of the Moon by : Steven Erikson

Download or read book Gardens of the Moon written by Steven Erikson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-06-01 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vast legions of gods, mages, humans, dragons and all manner of creatures play out the fate of the Malazan Empire in this first book in a major epic fantasy series from Steven Erikson. The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen's rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins. For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze. However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand... Conceived and written on a panoramic scale, Gardens of the Moon is epic fantasy of the highest order--an enthralling adventure by an outstanding new voice. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Garden Awakening

The Garden Awakening

Author: Mary Reynolds

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-03-31

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0857843141

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Bring in the energy of wild places and work in harmony with the land to grow your own food and live sustainably. In this beautifully illustrated book, award-winning garden designer Mary Reynolds encourages us to create a bond with the land to restore its health and feel its energy. Drawing inspiration from permaculture traditions as well as the ancient multi-tiered approach of forest gardening, Mary demonstrates how to create a magical garden that is an expanding, living, interconnected ecosystem. The Garden Awakening is both art and inspiration for any garden lover seeking to create a positive and natural space while incorporating sustainable living such as growing your own food. It combines practical step-by-step instructions with spiritual, ancient Celtic stories to help you awaken any garden space, nurturing it to benefit both the land and the people in it. This design approach allows ecosystems to be whole and in balance while providing a place for human beings to live happy and productive lives. Transform your garden into a vibrant, wild area that embraces the spiritual side of nature with this wonderful read.


Book Synopsis The Garden Awakening by : Mary Reynolds

Download or read book The Garden Awakening written by Mary Reynolds and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bring in the energy of wild places and work in harmony with the land to grow your own food and live sustainably. In this beautifully illustrated book, award-winning garden designer Mary Reynolds encourages us to create a bond with the land to restore its health and feel its energy. Drawing inspiration from permaculture traditions as well as the ancient multi-tiered approach of forest gardening, Mary demonstrates how to create a magical garden that is an expanding, living, interconnected ecosystem. The Garden Awakening is both art and inspiration for any garden lover seeking to create a positive and natural space while incorporating sustainable living such as growing your own food. It combines practical step-by-step instructions with spiritual, ancient Celtic stories to help you awaken any garden space, nurturing it to benefit both the land and the people in it. This design approach allows ecosystems to be whole and in balance while providing a place for human beings to live happy and productive lives. Transform your garden into a vibrant, wild area that embraces the spiritual side of nature with this wonderful read.

American Grown

American Grown

Author: Michelle Obama

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2012-05-29

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0307956024

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The former First Lady, author of Becoming, and producer and star of Waffles + Mochi tells the inspirational story of the White House Kitchen Garden and how gardens can transform our lives and the health of our communities. Early in her tenure as First Lady, despite being a novice gardener, Michelle Obama planted a kitchen garden on the White House’s South Lawn. To her delight, she watched as fresh vegetables, fruit, and herbs sprouted from the ground. Soon the White House Kitchen Garden inspired a new conversation all across the country about the food we feed our families and the impact it has on the nutrition and well-being of our children. In American Grown, Mrs. Obama invites you inside the White House Kitchen Garden, from the first planting to the satisfaction of the seasonal harvest. She reveals her early worries and struggles—would the new plants even grow?—and her joy as lettuce, corn, tomatoes, collards and kale, sweet potatoes and rhubarb flourished in the freshly tilled soil. She shares the stories of other gardens that have moved and inspired her on her journey across the nation. And she offers what she learned about planting your own backyard, school, or community garden. American Grown features: • a behind-the-scenes look at every season of the garden’s growth • unique recipes created by White House chefs • striking original photographs that bring the White House garden to life • a fascinating history of community gardens in the United States From a modern-day vegetable truck that brings fresh produce to underserved communities in Chicago, to Houston office workers who make the sidewalk bloom, to a New York City school that created a scented garden for the visually impaired, to a garden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that devotes its entire harvest to those less fortunate, American Grown isn’t just the story of a single garden. It’s a celebration of the bounty of our nation and a reminder of what we can all grow together.


Book Synopsis American Grown by : Michelle Obama

Download or read book American Grown written by Michelle Obama and published by Crown. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The former First Lady, author of Becoming, and producer and star of Waffles + Mochi tells the inspirational story of the White House Kitchen Garden and how gardens can transform our lives and the health of our communities. Early in her tenure as First Lady, despite being a novice gardener, Michelle Obama planted a kitchen garden on the White House’s South Lawn. To her delight, she watched as fresh vegetables, fruit, and herbs sprouted from the ground. Soon the White House Kitchen Garden inspired a new conversation all across the country about the food we feed our families and the impact it has on the nutrition and well-being of our children. In American Grown, Mrs. Obama invites you inside the White House Kitchen Garden, from the first planting to the satisfaction of the seasonal harvest. She reveals her early worries and struggles—would the new plants even grow?—and her joy as lettuce, corn, tomatoes, collards and kale, sweet potatoes and rhubarb flourished in the freshly tilled soil. She shares the stories of other gardens that have moved and inspired her on her journey across the nation. And she offers what she learned about planting your own backyard, school, or community garden. American Grown features: • a behind-the-scenes look at every season of the garden’s growth • unique recipes created by White House chefs • striking original photographs that bring the White House garden to life • a fascinating history of community gardens in the United States From a modern-day vegetable truck that brings fresh produce to underserved communities in Chicago, to Houston office workers who make the sidewalk bloom, to a New York City school that created a scented garden for the visually impaired, to a garden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that devotes its entire harvest to those less fortunate, American Grown isn’t just the story of a single garden. It’s a celebration of the bounty of our nation and a reminder of what we can all grow together.

Modern Nature

Modern Nature

Author: Derek Jarman

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1452915024

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Originally published: Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1994.


Book Synopsis Modern Nature by : Derek Jarman

Download or read book Modern Nature written by Derek Jarman and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1994.

The New Shade Garden

The New Shade Garden

Author: Ken Druse

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2015-04-14

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 1613126042

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The author of The Natural Shade Garden offers a comprehensive new guide to climate-conscious gardening—beautifully illustrated with 400 photos. There is a new generation of gardeners who are planting gardens not only for their visual beauty but also for their ability to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In The New Shade Garden, Ken Druse provides expert advice on creating a shade garden with an emphasis on the adjustments necessary for our changing climate. Druse examines common problems facing today's gardeners, from addressing the deer situation to watering plants without stressing limited resources. Detailing all aspects of the gardening process, The New Shade Garden covers basic topics such as designing your own garden, pruning trees, preparing soil for planting, and the vast array of flowers and greenery that grow best in the shade. Perfect for new and seasoned gardeners alike, this encyclopedic manual provides all the information you need to start or improve upon your own shade garden.


Book Synopsis The New Shade Garden by : Ken Druse

Download or read book The New Shade Garden written by Ken Druse and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2015-04-14 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of The Natural Shade Garden offers a comprehensive new guide to climate-conscious gardening—beautifully illustrated with 400 photos. There is a new generation of gardeners who are planting gardens not only for their visual beauty but also for their ability to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In The New Shade Garden, Ken Druse provides expert advice on creating a shade garden with an emphasis on the adjustments necessary for our changing climate. Druse examines common problems facing today's gardeners, from addressing the deer situation to watering plants without stressing limited resources. Detailing all aspects of the gardening process, The New Shade Garden covers basic topics such as designing your own garden, pruning trees, preparing soil for planting, and the vast array of flowers and greenery that grow best in the shade. Perfect for new and seasoned gardeners alike, this encyclopedic manual provides all the information you need to start or improve upon your own shade garden.

A Way to Garden

A Way to Garden

Author: Margaret Roach

Publisher: Timber Press

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1604698772

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“A Way to Garden prods us toward that ineffable place where we feel we belong; it’s a guide to living both in and out of the garden.” —The New York Times Book Review For Margaret Roach, gardening is more than a hobby, it’s a calling. Her unique approach, which she calls “horticultural how-to and woo-woo,” is a blend of vital information you need to memorize and intuitive steps you must simply feel and surrender to. In A Way to Garden, Roach imparts decades of garden wisdom on seasonal gardening, ornamental plants, vegetable gardening, design, gardening for wildlife, organic practices, and much more. She also challenges gardeners to think beyond their garden borders and to consider the ways gardening can enrich the world. Brimming with beautiful photographs of Roach’s own garden, A Way to Garden is practical, inspiring, and a must-have for every passionate gardener.


Book Synopsis A Way to Garden by : Margaret Roach

Download or read book A Way to Garden written by Margaret Roach and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A Way to Garden prods us toward that ineffable place where we feel we belong; it’s a guide to living both in and out of the garden.” —The New York Times Book Review For Margaret Roach, gardening is more than a hobby, it’s a calling. Her unique approach, which she calls “horticultural how-to and woo-woo,” is a blend of vital information you need to memorize and intuitive steps you must simply feel and surrender to. In A Way to Garden, Roach imparts decades of garden wisdom on seasonal gardening, ornamental plants, vegetable gardening, design, gardening for wildlife, organic practices, and much more. She also challenges gardeners to think beyond their garden borders and to consider the ways gardening can enrich the world. Brimming with beautiful photographs of Roach’s own garden, A Way to Garden is practical, inspiring, and a must-have for every passionate gardener.

The Gardens of the British Working Class

The Gardens of the British Working Class

Author: Margaret Willes

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2014-04-29

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 030018784X

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This magnificently illustrated people’s history celebrates the extraordinary feats of cultivation by the working class in Britain, even if the land they toiled, planted, and loved was not their own. Spanning more than four centuries, from the earliest records of the laboring classes in the country to today, Margaret Willes's research unearths lush gardens nurtured outside rough workers’ cottages and horticultural miracles performed in blackened yards, and reveals the ingenious, sometimes devious, methods employed by determined, obsessive, and eccentric workers to make their drab surroundings bloom. She also explores the stories of the great philanthropic industrialists who provided gardens for their workforces, the fashionable rich stealing the gardening ideas of the poor, alehouse syndicates and fierce rivalries between vegetable growers, flower-fanciers cultivating exotic blooms on their city windowsills, and the rich lore handed down from gardener to gardener through generations. This is a sumptuous record of the myriad ways in which the popular cultivation of plants, vegetables, and flowers has played—and continues to play—an integral role in everyday British life.


Book Synopsis The Gardens of the British Working Class by : Margaret Willes

Download or read book The Gardens of the British Working Class written by Margaret Willes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This magnificently illustrated people’s history celebrates the extraordinary feats of cultivation by the working class in Britain, even if the land they toiled, planted, and loved was not their own. Spanning more than four centuries, from the earliest records of the laboring classes in the country to today, Margaret Willes's research unearths lush gardens nurtured outside rough workers’ cottages and horticultural miracles performed in blackened yards, and reveals the ingenious, sometimes devious, methods employed by determined, obsessive, and eccentric workers to make their drab surroundings bloom. She also explores the stories of the great philanthropic industrialists who provided gardens for their workforces, the fashionable rich stealing the gardening ideas of the poor, alehouse syndicates and fierce rivalries between vegetable growers, flower-fanciers cultivating exotic blooms on their city windowsills, and the rich lore handed down from gardener to gardener through generations. This is a sumptuous record of the myriad ways in which the popular cultivation of plants, vegetables, and flowers has played—and continues to play—an integral role in everyday British life.