Mad keen gardener

I've been enjoying The Adventurous Gardener by Christopher Lloyd this weekend. The edition I'm reading is a used book, yellowed and faintly musty, which only adds to its appeal (completely irrational, I know, as I'm equally enamored of the smell and feel of new books too). There's great garden writing throughout its pages, as wide-ranging in topic as it is specific in detail. It's the kind of book you can pick up, open to a page at random, and invariably find a useful nugget of information, or a great turn of phrase:

...the other extreme that we see in so many front gardens: the colour addicts who lurch incontinently from lumps of forsythia and double pink 'Kanzan' cherry, through a blaze of rhododendrons and dumpy blobs of azalea, floribunda roses, scarlet salvias and so to a dying exit with mop-headed chrysanthemums.

That sort of gardening is a bore, especially as there is so much of it, but at least it is full-bloodedly boring. It wallows in its vulgarity with a sense of enjoyment.

Color-holic that I am, I was ready to slink out the back door, cheeks reddened, upon reading this, before realizing the backhanded compliment hidden in the passage above. To my relief, elsewhere in the book there is plenty of useful advice about color in the garden and how to use it...including a defense of the bougainvillea in its "original startling magenta".

Interesting feature: the heading of each right-hand page (where you would usually find the book or chapter title) includes a title that describes that page's contents. So, for example, in the 13-page "Experiments in Bedding" section of the "Seasons and Situations" chapter, you find the following page headings:

Rituals Need Rethinking

Late Sowings Catch Up...

...But Sow Sweet Williams Early

Scented Blue Petunias

Mixed Results from Dahlia Seed

Stayer Phloxes

Early Tulips are a Luxury

There's a lot in this book that I know I'll be returning to again and again, but these words from the preface have special resonance:

Gardening is endlessly fascinating and diverse. Those of us who are irretrievably committed are immensely lucky. I am an enthusiast and I do believe that, numerous as the world's band of gardeners is, there should be more of us. Not just routine but mad keen gardeners.

The Adventurous Gardener. Christopher Lloyd. Random House, Inc., 1983. ISBN 0-394-53676-2.

Comments

[Alicia]

When it was warmer I was hoping to put in some beds and plant some local flora. Now that I don't know how long I will be in this house I am hesitant. I should do it anyway, I think, for the next person in case I decide to move closer to work.

[Bookish Gardener]

If I may invent a saying: "when in doubt, plant". (Speaking as one who believes in the restorative powers of playing with dirt!) You could put in some self-sowing annuals which might come up in time for you to enjoy ... and do container plantings that could be portable to your new home.

[Alicia]

Great idea. I have several plants in containers, most in my atrium. I am fretting on how to easily move the 5' Peace Lily both out of the atrium and to another home. Thank goodness Texas is so warm, we can still dig and plant this time of year.

[Bookish Gardener]

Speaking of Texas, have you read Sunbelt Gardening by Tom Peace? It's probably the most exuberant garden book I've read. Even though it's several zones removed from my climate, I've gotten a lot out of his very creative plant combinations and seasonal planting strategies...plus the photographs are beautiful and the energy in his writing is infectious.

[Alicia]

I have not read it, thanks for the recommendation. On the booklist it goes!