A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed [Hardcover]

James Fenton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 2002

A refreshingly simple and free-spirited approach to making a garden for pure pleasure

Forget "bones" Forget "structure." Forget trees, shrubs, and perennials. As James Fenton writes, "This is not a book about huge projects. It is about thinking your way towards the essential flower-garden, by the most traditional of routes: planting some seeds and seeing how they grow."

In this light-hearted, instructive, original "games of lists," Fenton selects one hundred plants he would choose to grow from seed. Flowers for color, size, and exotic interest; herbs and meadow flowers; climbing vines, tropical species-- Fenton describes one hundred readily available varieties, and tells how to acquire and grow them.

Here is a happy, stylish, unpretentious and thought-provoking gardening book that will beguile and inspire both novice and expert alike.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Marry the soul and sensitivity of a poet with the passion and prowess of a dedicated gardener and the result would be Fenton, who has created a wee gem of a book, hardly bigger than the packet of seeds he rhapsodizes about, based on a fascinating premise: given an empty garden and starting solely by seed, what plants would you choose to grow? Examining only a plant's essential quality, be it color, foliage, fragrance, or form, Fenton postulates that it's possible to develop a stunning garden by considering only the most inherent properties, relegating loftier goals such as design and structure to secondary positions. Speaking with obvious experience and unabashed enthusiasm, Fenton presents his Top 100 list of reliable and remarkable garden performers with erudite charm and tongue-in cheek wit, so vividly describing these garden treasures as to conjure up halcyon visions in the mind's eye. With seed catalog in one hand and Fenton's guide in the other, this unique way of producing a glorious garden becomes a sensory adventure. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"[James Fenton is a] gardener...who is surprised by the joy of a lap full of seed."
--Giles Foden, The Guardian (London)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 136 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (April 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374160295
• ISBN-13: 978-0374160296
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,257,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Poet's Garden, December 7, 2004

By 

H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed (Hardcover)

The British poet James Fenton has given us here in this slim volume a list of the plants one would grow if one were given a "blank slate of a garden" and "given the stipulation that everything you grow in this garden must be raised by you from seed." Mr. Fenton's definition of a garden is large and encompassing: It "must include a spectacular one that I saw. . . in Manhattan, which consisted of nothing but morning glories grown on a fire escape, high up above the street. . . or a row of hyacinths in glasses" as well as gardens at Versailles. Some of the groups the writer discusses are broken down as to color, size, flowers for cutting, climbers, and what he calls "Flowers That Hop Around." He also lists several books on growing flowers in his "reference library", equipment and the 100 seed list in the end of the book.

This book is obviously not a treatise on growing flowers. You'll need to refer to other books unless you have a lot of experience. (I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this information until I'm told that Mr. Fenton has a fulltime gardener.) Additionally, there are no color photographs here of the various varieties. Mr. Fenton's list is highly subjective. He tells us why he eliminates some flowers and includes others; there are no cottage pinks, for example, because they all have been either bought or given to him as plants.

What I was hoping for in this book I didn't find-- that the writer might somehow tie up poetry and flowers. He certainly didn't have to, but he does make interesting asides on occasion. He opines that one can tell from his photographs that Robert Mapplethorpe "loved flowers" but that we wouldn't have expected him to like plants. And in discussing false bishop's weed, Mr. Fenton intimates that all bishops are false!

You have to tip your hat to a poet who gardens. This little book would make an ideal and unusual gift for your favorite gardener.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant, May 21, 2004

By 

Valerie Adolph "Coast Journal" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed (Hardcover)

This is a pleasant little book; basically a series of essays on the writer?s one hundred favourite plants that can quite easily be purchased and grown from seed.

I enjoyed the personal approach to gardening and plants, and also the relaxed random-ness of it. The snobbery of design and planning, of garden bones and vistas, does not hold this writer in thrall. He knows and loves plants, and he wrote these essays about them.

In truth there isn?t much substance here, but it makes a pleasing, quick read, and the book would make a nice little gift for a friend.

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant, May 21, 2004

By 

Valerie Adolph "Coast Journal" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed (Hardcover)

This is a pleasant little book; basically a series of essays on the writer?s one hundred favourite plants that can quite easily be purchased and grown from seed.

I enjoyed the personal approach to gardening and plants, and also the relaxed random-ness of it. The snobbery of design and planning, of garden bones and vistas, does not hold this writer in thrall. He knows and loves plants, and he wrote these essays about them.

In truth there isn?t much substance here, but it makes a pleasing, quick read, and the book would make a nice little gift for a friend.