Most garden books are how-tos. You want tips on growing tomatoes or laying out a kitchen garden? There’s a book for that.  Others fall into the category of visual celebration. They’re full of lush pictures and dreamy landscapes and the point is not so much instruction but inspiration. I love both those types of garden books. But I’m discovering a new category I might like even more.

They’re books that are meditations on gardening. They’re books that celebrate the poetry of gardening. They’re books where you get lost in the beautiful language of plants. The Late Interiors, by Marjorie Sandor, which I recommended a couple of months ago, falls into this soulful category. So does my latest favorite,  A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed by James Fenton.

James Fenton is a noted British poet. He’s also a garden lover. In this slim, lovely volume he imagines growing a garden not based on a careful landscape design or a long term garden plan, but based simply on which packets of seeds appeal to you that season. There’s not a single photo in the whole book. There aren’t any step-by-steps either. Instead, he invokes names of flowers and describes them in luscious detail.

If you try to read the book all at once, your eyes start to slide over the words. You have to slow down and savor it. It’s like dark chocolate — you just break off one square a night.

I’m not sure I’d enjoy this book as much during the summer. It’s almost too quiet for times of year when real life flowers are blooming. But for the cold months, it gives you the pleasure of imagining what’s to come. And it’s sort of like in a scary movie, where it’s much scarier before you see the alien. Having to conjure up the images of the plants entirely in your head makes the reverie that much more spectacular.

If you were a real genius, you’d give this book to a garden-loving friend along with the 100 packets of seed described… Hint hint. Secret Santa, are you reading this?

Tags: Book Reviews