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A Garden's Purpose: Cultivating Our Connection with the Natural World
Essays and stories to inspire us to nurture diverse, meaningful relationships with gardens and landscapes.
"A garden, as Félix de Rosen suggests in this book, is not a place separate to the world but a tether to it. At a time of increasing ecological and cultural fragmentation and loss, de Rosen reminds us of the importance of the garden as a place of gentle activism and abundance, and gardening as a framework for being with the more-than-human world—engaging with care, reciprocity, and creativity. A Garden's Purpose is an important, timely book." — Georgina Reid, editor of Wonderground Journal and author of The Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants
The garden provides a powerful, generous way of looking at the world. Through stories and essays, this gracious volume, written in a highly accessible tone, invites readers on a journey to understand gardens as places where we build mutually beneficial relationships with the living world around us.
As beautiful spaces, gardens fill us with hope and wonder. As gathering places, they nurture friendships and communities. Thoughtfully crafted, they make us pause and appreciate our surroundings. Full of edible plants, they nourish us. Full of diversity—human and non-human—they connect us with the polychromatic world in which we live. They make us feel at home in our own bodies, in our cities, and on our planet.
Each chapter in this book is dedicated to a specific idea or element of the garden, from places where gardens grow (i.e., a driveway in San Francisco, a bathtub as a planter) to garden management (why some lawns need watering every few days, and some gardens can go almost a full year without irrigation) to color and texture (i.e., how fine-textured plants like grasses can be used to unify a space), and everything in between. Hundreds of gardens from all corners of the globe are included, photographed in glorious full color.
Perfect for home gardeners, landscape designers, or as a gift for the gardener in your life, this is an ode to the wonder, design, and habitat of gardens, and an inspiration to nurture meaningful relationships with the natural world around us.
"A garden, as Félix de Rosen suggests in this book, is not a place separate to the world but a tether to it. At a time of increasing ecological and cultural fragmentation and loss, de Rosen reminds us of the importance of the garden as a place of gentle activism and abundance, and gardening as a framework for being with the more-than-human world—engaging with care, reciprocity, and creativity. A Garden's Purpose is an important, timely book." — Georgina Reid, editor of Wonderground Journal and author of The Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants
The garden provides a powerful, generous way of looking at the world. Through stories and essays, this gracious volume, written in a highly accessible tone, invites readers on a journey to understand gardens as places where we build mutually beneficial relationships with the living world around us.
As beautiful spaces, gardens fill us with hope and wonder. As gathering places, they nurture friendships and communities. Thoughtfully crafted, they make us pause and appreciate our surroundings. Full of edible plants, they nourish us. Full of diversity—human and non-human—they connect us with the polychromatic world in which we live. They make us feel at home in our own bodies, in our cities, and on our planet.
Each chapter in this book is dedicated to a specific idea or element of the garden, from places where gardens grow (i.e., a driveway in San Francisco, a bathtub as a planter) to garden management (why some lawns need watering every few days, and some gardens can go almost a full year without irrigation) to color and texture (i.e., how fine-textured plants like grasses can be used to unify a space), and everything in between. Hundreds of gardens from all corners of the globe are included, photographed in glorious full color.
Perfect for home gardeners, landscape designers, or as a gift for the gardener in your life, this is an ode to the wonder, design, and habitat of gardens, and an inspiration to nurture meaningful relationships with the natural world around us.
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
191 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 14, 2023
3 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 5, 2023
“Gardens are not just places. They are experiences through time.”
This book explores the possibilities inherent in gardens of all kinds - from cracks in the sidewalk, to intentional garden masterpieces, to natural topography. It invites us to view the garden not as merely a functional part of the landscape (although it is), but as a place where we can participate in the harmony of nature through water, soil, light, and more.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book as an exercise in understanding and appreciating how the elements of nature work together, and how humans can participate in that dynamic with intentional, respectful intervention and design.
“To enter a garden is to experience the fundamentally magical nature of reality.”
This book explores the possibilities inherent in gardens of all kinds - from cracks in the sidewalk, to intentional garden masterpieces, to natural topography. It invites us to view the garden not as merely a functional part of the landscape (although it is), but as a place where we can participate in the harmony of nature through water, soil, light, and more.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book as an exercise in understanding and appreciating how the elements of nature work together, and how humans can participate in that dynamic with intentional, respectful intervention and design.
“To enter a garden is to experience the fundamentally magical nature of reality.”
November 6, 2023
This book should be equally valuable to both beginning and more seasoned gardeners.
It covers a lot of essential subjects at relatively high levels but with specific and very creative examples while contextualizing each subject with a purpose that contributes to the larger vision of a garden.
This book does a great job at challenging what a garden really even is in the first place. This critical approach opens a world of possibilities for the potential expressions that a garden can take, and helps deliver it from common conceptions of tediously maintained and contained natural spaces. It's actually very empowering to know that anyone can garden because we're not only endowed with a connection to nature, but we're an active part of it. This theme runs throughout the book as an essential reminder to perhaps deprogram our more adversarial conceptions of nature. Through the lens of this book though, gardening becomes the creative expression of our indelible place in nature.
Felix manages to say a lot in this book without many words. It's an accessible read with lots of beautiful photos, and it's probably rich enough to even inspire any non-gardeners that happen to read it.
It covers a lot of essential subjects at relatively high levels but with specific and very creative examples while contextualizing each subject with a purpose that contributes to the larger vision of a garden.
This book does a great job at challenging what a garden really even is in the first place. This critical approach opens a world of possibilities for the potential expressions that a garden can take, and helps deliver it from common conceptions of tediously maintained and contained natural spaces. It's actually very empowering to know that anyone can garden because we're not only endowed with a connection to nature, but we're an active part of it. This theme runs throughout the book as an essential reminder to perhaps deprogram our more adversarial conceptions of nature. Through the lens of this book though, gardening becomes the creative expression of our indelible place in nature.
Felix manages to say a lot in this book without many words. It's an accessible read with lots of beautiful photos, and it's probably rich enough to even inspire any non-gardeners that happen to read it.
April 10, 2024
A beautifully printed, short paean to gardens. Would make a nice gift.
July 2, 2024
Loved this book and Felix’s philosophy on gardens. Fitting Wendell Berry quote from the book, “A garden is a solution that leads to other solutions”
February 5, 2025
A pretty book that I wanted to like more, but in the end I found its written content insubstantial.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews