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- From: Catriona Tudor Erler <cterler@gardenvista.com>
- To: gardenwriters-on-gardening <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books
- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:43:42 -0500
Years ago Betty Mackey loaned me read Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi, and it has become one of my favorite garden books. Soon after reading Betty's copy, I bought my own. Two of my favorite quotes from it are:
"When I spot a tree house on someone's property, I know civilized people live there, people whose idea of happiness goes beyond the provision of color TV. At the very least, they have made the gift of privacy and independence to a child, and if the child rejects those, he is past saving." [she wasn't shy about expressing her opinion; neither was Gertrude Jekyll who had scathing things to say about some gardens and gardeners...]
and
"I can recall few keener pleasures and climbed trees until well past the age when it was decent to do so. (One's own children with their embarrassed wails soon put an end to that sort of thing.)"
I also love The Greater Perfection: The Story of the Gardens at Les Quatre Vents by Francis H. Cabot. That is a wonderful garden, and he tells his story well. I second Daryl's vote for Ruth Stout's How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back. Betty also turned me on to that book, and I wish I had purchased a copy when it was still in print.
Catriona
Daryl wrote:
My all-time favorite is Ruth Stout's "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back".
When I first read it, in the 70's, I was at the gardening stage of her "aha!" moment when she realized that the "experts" weren't always such. It gave me the freedom to observe and do what seemed right, rather than following the formulas in the older gardening books. She also kept me laughing.
d
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[gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books,
Nancy Szerlag, 01/10/2009
- Re: [gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books, Ellen Zachos, 01/10/2009
- Re: [gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books, Carolyn Ulrich, 01/10/2009
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Re: [gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books,
Daryl, 01/10/2009
- Re: [gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books, Catriona Tudor Erler, 01/10/2009
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
- Re: [gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books, Hamptongar, 01/10/2009
- Re: [gwl-g] Favorite Gardening Books, Hamptongar, 01/10/2009
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