Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place

by Jim Nollman

This book is full of helpful tips from the author’s decades of gardening experience. And, it presents the Zen of gardening—the sense of place and purpose that tending the land means to us. It is a wonderful gift for the gardener seeking the simplicity and spirit of the land.

Genres: Gardening, Philosophy

Paperback

First published May 1, 1994

Reviews

[Matthew Teti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filled with advice and anecdotes from the author's garden, this book sheds light on organic gardening practices and the philosophy of gardening. I picked it up as a primer before embarking on my own adventure digging in the earth and it taught me both practical and theoretical approaches to the plant and animal kingdoms. "Gardening" is perhaps not the right nomenclature here, as it conjures up images of housewives planted on plastic mats tending to perfect rows of pansies. This "gardening" is more akin to intellectual hippies who actually take care of their property and dabble in ecological effects beyond the perimeter of their veggie patch.

[Cody]

Useful, funny, and opinionated, I find this book to be a much welcomed invitation to "[r]efocus [our] eyes on the spaces between the imagination and the resource."