Paths of Desire: The Passions of a Suburban Gardener

by Dominique Browning

With the same warmth, wisdom, wit, and accessibility that readers have come to love and trust in her monthly column, House & Garden editor in chief Dominique Browning offers this lively, charming, and instructive story of restoring a neglected suburban garden.

When a retaining wall in Browning's New York suburban garden collapsed, she was forced into action. Paths of Desire is the enchanting, amusing, and moving account of making a garden -- and confronting the essence of suburban gardening, with its idiosyncratic ecosystem. This meant struggling with depraved skunks and raccoons, marauding teenagers, plastic jungle gyms, toppling garbage cans, uncontrollable eyesores, potholed drives, and all the grinding, honking, and buzzing of the neighborhood.

Browning's delightfully frank prose conveys the very sense of being deep in a garden, with all its organic smells and textures, and the myriad joys of deciding what to plant and watching as the vision is realized. It contains a rich store of advice and illustrative anecdotes for enthusiasts and novices alike, as Browning amusingly documents the missteps she took in the planning of her garden and the satisfactions of finally getting it right. In Paths of Desire she teaches us how to embrace our plots of land -- no matter their size, beauty, or proximity to the city -- and make them our own. But she also reminds us that the life of a garden can never be separated from the people who wander in and out of characters like the charming but useless children; the philosophical tree doctor and the band of Helpful Men; the neighbors -- legalistic on one side, aesthetically challenged on the other -- and, best and worst of all, the True Love.

By the end of the book, Browning has transformed her garden -- and her life -- and has created a place of enchantment, which is most of all what a garden should be.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Nature

237 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Dominique Browning writes a monthly column called Personal Nature for the
 Environmental Defense Fund website. She is a regular contributor to the New
 York Times Book Review and also writes for O, Body + Soul, Wired, and
 Travel & Leisure, among other publications. Before House & Garden she 
worked at The Edison Project, Mirabella, Newsweek, Texas Monthly, and Esquire. She is the
 author of Around the House and In the Garden, and Paths of Desire:
 The Passions of a Suburban Gardener. She is the mother of two sons;
 her new house and garden are on the coast of Rhode Island.


Reviews

[JayeL · Rating 3 out of 5]

The editor of Home and Garden has written this book about
redoing her garden. Some of it is interesting and some of it is hard to read or a little too self indulgent. Lots of references to different kinds of plants and relations with neighbors. It is an excellent description of how a defined project can grow from “adding a few plants to the garden” to taking out trees, both living and dead, repaving the driveway, replacing bricks in the front walk, etc. I didn’t finish the book, because I got tired of the stream of consciousness style of her writing.

[Doriana Bisegna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love reading stories about people grappling with gardens and soil! Don't ask me why! While I enjoy planting flowers and making my front and back yard pretty, I am not a gardener by any means. Browning has a way of creating that desire to be one!

[Julie Durnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a totally wonderful surprise-I loved it! Her writing was humorous and chatty; and knowledge of gardening/plants on par with a professional. Although she has the means to renovate and plant in the style noted in the book, it was a joy to read and not a high-brow book of a small suburban garden. The chapter on Varmints is a real hoot, I laughed out loud reading at work during lunch break!
"The raccoons come out into the garden earlier and earlier, no longer waiting for dark, and this has emboldened everyone else to join in and make an appearance at the cocktail hour. My sister, sipping a glass of wine with me in the garden one evening, jumped and screamed and pointed over my shoulder, and I turned slowly to see a big, handsome, masked devil of a raccoon standing, one paw on his hip, I swear, as if to say, Come on, girls, drink up. Closin' time."
"The garden continued to yield up its own gifts, and each offering became an odd way of marking the passage of time...He missed the lapis sea of scilla that washed over the feet of pieris. Their chains of pearly buds seemed to be rising up out of a tidal pool. He missed the bruised glaze laid down on the cold winter earth by the grape hyacinth; he missed feeling the soft carpets of snowdrop underfoot."
The book had me at the sketched map of the garden at the start of the book!

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book. It helped with my terrible February doldrums and also added to my gardening daydreams. I probably should have read her first book first. And at first I was annoyed with a character only being referred to as "True Love" but it grew on me. The map in the beginning is a nice touch too.

Now I'm pondering who will let me scheme my way into their garden as soon as spring comes so I can work and play in the dirt (and occaisionally lull about among flowers and trees.)

[Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a divorce, Browning rethinks her garden, in part due to disaster (a retaining wall gives way, garden is flooded) and in part due to finding the energy to do what she's been contemplating for years. She's an odd duck, but I stayed with her. Nominally a garden book, but really a memoir of a difficult period in her life.

[Jane Giardino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this with a book group years ago - gardening, divorce and single motherhood back story - a great read.

[Bonnie Westmark · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book! I found myself immersed in not only her her garden, but in the appearances of the “helpful men” and her disappearing “true love.” As one whose garden is a sacred refuge, who depends on helpful handymen on occasion for help in the garden and on the house, I was captivated. Like the author, my garden is an extension of my very being. It evolves as my life enfolds and provides me with peace and life giving energy. I so enjoyed this book and could identify with each and every page.

[Donna Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

House and Garden magazine editor, Dominique Browning, is an ambitious gardener who finds the rigors and joys of landscape gardening to be a metaphor for her life. I got a little bogged down in the technical aspects of caring for trees and such but was inspired by Browning's creativity and perseverance.

[Misti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finally just abandoning this one. I really tried to get through it but it did not hold my attention.

[kevin sheahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book about the trials and pleasures of a suburban garden. Got a bit whiny in places, sometimes over dramatic, but in the end it was a charming and quaint read.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ordinary (?!) duties of the house, the musings of an intelligent, introspective woman with a great wit.

[Frederick Thurber · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gem of a book. Browning is a brilliant writer. Highly recommended.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a gardener but immensely appreciate the labors and bounty of others who are. Dominique Browning brings her garden to life in the pages of this book, not so much as a recitation of the plants that are in it, but instead a soulful and heartfelt personal journal of the meaning those plants and their layout around her home have in her life at the time she is writing. My favorite essays are those about her trees and the impending loss of them due to rot and neglect. I could have done with a lot more of the interspersed thoughts about her elusive True Love and his impact on her garden and life. I'm very much looking forward to reading her latest memoir "Slow Love" and wonder if he's in it.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Needless to say, I adore the non-fiction books of Dominque Browning. I often re-read them just for pleasure, so that I can hear her voice again, unerringly wise. In this book, she recounts the creation of two desire paths: a "long and winding" one through her restored half-acre suburban garden, and an equally meandering one from the desolation of a broken marriage to the joyful rebuilding of both her garden and her life.

[Ruhegeist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very believable book on the average suburban gardener with all the whims, foibles and feuds. Browning is honest and sometimes humorous through the presentation of her life and the entire process of renovating her garden.
Truthfully, I prefer Ackerman's voice, research and desire to teach. But the authors are really too different to compare fairly.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really, really enjoyed this, even though I only picked it up, from a table at the library, because of the cover.

This is a series of connected essays, on gardening on a suburban plot (albeit a lavish one, I infer), which also seem to be about making one's way through adult life.

A good bedside table book -- I read one essay/chapter a night for a couple of weeks and looked forward to it.

[Annie Larussa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept putting this book down. I liked it enough but wasn't enthralled. I am not a huge gardener so maybe someone who was, would love all the plant names and species. I kept waiting for more of a plot, more satisfaction from this wandering tale. It seemed like the writer was plodding along and couldn't figure if she just wanted to write a gardening book or a broken heart book.

[Tami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Club April selection. This was cute and once I got into it a pretty quick read. Anyone who has gardened for very long will be able to relate to much of this woman's experiences - although her landscape is much more mature than mine.

[Susan Hanberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. She articulated many of my ideas about gardening and life.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite authors - fun for all you gardeners out there.

[Alyaaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it! A fun and fast read.

[Relyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't as good as her first book of essays, but it's still very good. I do love a good essay.

[Lavanita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gread read for anyone that loves to garden! If you don't "love" to garden, it's not for you!

[Sharen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoy Dominique Browning's writing so much.

[Dawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sure this is a very nice book for someone, just not me. I gave myself permission to stop when it just didn't grab me after 75 pages.