Customer Reviews

The Passionate Gardener

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Plenty of books on the market survey flowers and gardening, but THE PASSIONATE GARDENER offers something different, being a handbook and memoir from a naturalist, philosopher, and poet who is as interested in the garden as a symbol as in gardening as a talent. His discourse on flowers, botanical history, and the act of planting blends literature and science with history and offers college-level readers a broad-based survey of the psychological sociological and botanical roots of landscape gardening.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is by far the best "gardening" book I have ever read. It has stood the test of time and will continue to do so. A true classic. And in this edition, a wonder to behold.

Densely philosophical and bristling with literary and historical references, The Passionate Gardener is a gardening book like no other. Borchardt traces the development of Western gardening from its classical beginnings, and along the way provides fascinating (if rather broad) characterizations of the world's chief floristic regions. Borchardt pays gardening the compliment of treating it as a subject worthy of scholarly devotion--indeed, for him, it is one of the humanities. Although not for the casual reader, The Passionate Gardener will richly reward those who can muster the persistence and patience it demands.