Book Review: February

The Garden Blogger's Book Club

Two Gardeners: A friendship in Letters: Katharine S. White & Elizabeth Lawrence
Edited by Emily Herring Wilson

A glimpse into another time, not so removed from ours, and yet such a strange landscape.  A world where Lawrence keeps files upon files of clippings from papers and magazines she collected from correspondents all over to further her plant knowledge.  A world where DDT is sprayed regularly, all around the streets, with no notice to the residents.  A world where Rachel Carson is just publishing Silent Spring, as a serial, in the New Yorker.  The worlds of White and Lawrence, and the era in which they lived, are an interesting backdrop to their correspondence. 

And the plants they write about?  I wish that I could dedicate large chunks of time to tracking down such beauties as Peony Sylvia Saunders.  Obtained by White in in fall of 1960, this plant was given a Memorial Award from the American Peony Society in 1974.  When I look for it today, I find it mentioned at  La Pivoinerie D'Aoust, a specialty nursery in Canada, but not available in their catalog.  So once again, if you fancy a plant out of trade propagation, you will need to find someone who will send you a division.  The more things change...

Paeony Sylvia Saunders

Today, we can use the internet to find all sorts of plants, some are plants that we are seeking and some are plants that we just find.   We can protest the use of chemicals in our immediate environment, but not so much in our food production.   We aren't watching our men and boys go off to Vietnam, but instead the go off to Iraq, to Somalia, to who knows where next...

But we bide by our gardens, tending our earth, and sending out our correspondences via computer.  It's a much bigger world out there today, and so much smaller.

"Gardening, reading about gardening, and writing about gardening are all one. No one can garden alone."

-Elizabeth Lawrence

Books to Read:

Onward and Upward in the Garden, by Katharine S. White
The Little Bulbs,  by Elizabeth Lawrence - I do need to read this one soon, as the wry tone of Mr. Krippendorf is not to be missed.  (see page nine, last paragraph for a good chuckle)
A Southern Garden, by Elizabeth Lawrence
Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins, by Elizabeth Lawrence
and possibly
No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence, by Emily Herring Wilson
also:
Natives Preferred: Native trees and flowers for every location, by Caroline Dormon

Places to visit:

Lob's Wood
Briarwood

Comments

[Carol]

Thank you for participating again in the book club. I love the quote you pulled out, it rings so true.

[Annie in Austin]

Nice post, Jenn - and the peony looks so lovely that it might be worth tracking down. If you run across "Through the Garden Gate" [Eliz Lawrence, edit Bill Neal] you'd probably like that one, too.
You are so efficient! It's not even the middle of the month!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

[Jenn]

Oh, Annie.

I had a lot of free in December and early January.

I have March's book on loan from the library, but if things keep going like they are, I may not get it read. Busy!

[Don]

If you really liked this book, I'd suggest Lawrence's "The Little Bulbs... A Tale Of Two Gardens". It's my favorite E.L.
Don

[Carina]

I'm not a truly avid gardener...but that is a beeeyootyful peony.
And, you posted it on my birthday. :)

[Jenn]

Carina! Happy Belated!