Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place [Hardcover]

Jim Nollman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1994

This book is full of helpful tips from Jim Nollman's decades of gardening experience, plus the Zen of gardening--the sense of place and purpose, what tending the land means to us.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Nollman's view of gardening is spiritual, expressing an abiding concern for the natural order of things and discomfort with the reigning philosophy among enthusiasts who seek to control nature in order to achieve an aesthetic landscape. When Nollman generously shares his observations on "plant personalities" or ventures forth on unorthodox types of gardens, his views are as entertaining as they are instructive. The "biocentric" approach reflected here is about a fundamental connection with nature that transforms the act of gardening into an adventure filled with lessons great and small. Nollman's harvest is abundant, with much to be reflected upon and all-out savored. Alice Joyce

From Kirkus Reviews

Nollman (Spiritual Ecology, not reviewed) offers provocative reflections on the need to create a sense of place--``a bit of paradise within an imperfect world.'' Nollman offers an eclectic month-by-month record of his gardening experiences. For this ex-hippie, who admits he came to gardening with many fixed ideas and prejudices that he has since abandoned or modified, a garden is a place where a genuine healing relationship between person and place can be formed. Asserting that that ``we, the increasingly rootless species, must learn to root...must learn to nurture the ground that sustains us,'' he demonstrates how this can be done. In essays that reflect the changing seasons in his own island garden in Puget Sound, Wash., Nollman discusses attitudes to nature that have led to widespread environmental damage; the need for a middle ground between ecology ideologues and ordinary farmers; and the indivisibility of all life forms. The progress of a sequoia tree he plants near a pond in his ``one-tree garden'' provides a common thread for both his practical comments and his philosophy. The broader topics are illustrated by examples from his garden: In ``March: The Soil Garden'' he gives a history of soil and shares his techniques for creating a nutrient- rich soil; in ``June: The Semi-Real Garden'' he ponders the effects of plant hybridization and his affection for a double peony that ``epitomizes all the excess of the semi-real flower world''; and in ``October: The Weed Garden'' he suggests alternatives to herbicides for resolving weeding problems while noting that weeds are ``simply those unintended plants able to thrive and heal broken ground.'' Like the best gardeners, Nollman knows that gardening is as much about living as it is about growing the perfect rose. A gardening book refreshingly rooted in reality that is also balm for the spirit. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080502719X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805027198
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,597,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for gardeners, June 8, 2001

By 

Addison Berry "add1sun" (Jessup, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place (Paperback)

This is a great book. Not about gardening, but about living on this Earth. Nollman uses his very individual garden to highlight his universal points about organic farming and local ecology. He makes me think about my own plot of land and what it could possibly mean to me. He isn't a perfect human preaching about the perfect way to grow a garden. He shares his process of understanding his own garden as well as the development of his ethics about gardening and tries to tie down some very big ideas about this planet we call home. A worthy read for anyone, not just gardeners, who are up to facing the reality of caring for the planet and ourselves.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On becoming a gardener, March 24, 2000

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place (Paperback)

I am reviewing this book because I read it and it's one of my all time favorites. I'm a fairly successful gardener. People stop on my street and admire my flowers. Many friends and acquaintances ask for advice. I wish I had written this book, it says what I want to say. Learning to garden is a process of bringing forth what already exists inside you. One learns to garden through trial and error, and what works in one garden may not work in another. Cookie cutter directions simply don't work, and when one follows them and fails, one feels like a failure. Nollman writes about gardening in his part of the world, which is not like your part of the world or my part of the world, but the thoughts he shares transcend these differences. There are two major approaches to gardening: one organic--spiritual and esthetic; the other nonorganic and ugly. To be content, Nollman says, all you need is love and an organic garden. Nothing works if you work against nature (probably the reason our forebears were thrown out of Eden). WHY WE GARDEN helped me maintain the link between the inner gardener I was born to be and Gaia.

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding the Zen in the Garden, May 9, 2008

By 

Matthew M. Cohen "Author,Garden Watering a Ze... (north Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place (Paperback)

Zen of Watering Your Garden

Of all the books I've read this book comes closest to saying what I try to convey in my own book the Zen of Watering Your garden. The author talks about his garden from month to month but what he really tries to convey is the concept of the garden as a sanctuary. This book is entirely prose. I attempt the same thing with photographs accompanied by aphorisms, poetry and other prose. Matt cohen