From Gardens Where We Feel Secure

by Susanna Gant, Rowan Spray

Genres: Nonfiction

35 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Correy Baldwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful (and too short) essay on the importance and value of community gardening (as well as individual gardening) and living in a balanced relationship with nature – for ecological health and for individual and community well being. The gardening and tending of the land that Grant celebrates is a political act, alongside everything else: a communal care of the land that pushes against the dominance of property ownership, and encourages a society based instead on more “egalitarian sentiments.” Appropriately, the nuggets of wisdom in the text have been gathered as much from her fellow gardeners as from her own experience.

Grant peppers the pamphlet with images of local wild plants, along with comments on the history and characteristics of each plant, and her own relationship to it. The idea is to encourage us to recognize – and thus value – the local plant life around us.

[River · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely little pamphlet. I really enjoyed susannas outlook on guerrilla gardening in urban spaces. She shares the way she looks at gardening with plants native to her region as a process of politics, rewilding and reconnecting communities to eachother and their land. Truly inspirational, a good read filled with many great resources for further reading.