An original and elegnt blend of historical and literary gardening lore, personal opinion and extensive experience with all facets fo life in the garden.

Reviews

The "Modern Library Gardening Series" is an American gem of a find - reprints of gardening classics written and published long before today's flurry of overly bright garden books. These are true garden works, not just a photographic procession of perfect plants. Here, you'll find excitement, love, commitment and die-hard horticulturalists imparting their knowledge and experience in a way that makes learning enjoyable. From playwright Reginald Arkell's "Old Herbaceous" hilarious novel to Frank Kingdon Ward's diaries of daring-do in the Far East, American Eleanor Perenyi's pert comments and asides to Margery Fish's late-found desire to build a garden of her dreams in Devon, the passion and ardour with which these writers embrace the subject is sorely missed today. An American garden classic, "Green Thoughts" by Eleanor Perenyi offers an A-Z of essays on topics as diverse as strawberries and sweetpeas, tools and treehouses, vines and ivies. Delivered in a faintly ascerbic and often opinionated fashion, it is an informative and intelligent dissertation on her horticultural love over a period of twenty years. Disparaging, congratulatory, pensive and vivacious, this is a must for every gardener to read in the garden, perhaps at night, with a glass of wine, relaxing to Perenyi's informed, readable prose. - Lucy Watson