Stalking the Wild Amaranth: Gardening in the Age of Extinction

by Janet Marinelli, Stephen K-M. Tim (Drawings)

An important horticultural memoir articulating a new landscape art that's both environmentally sensitive and rich in creativity.

Janet Marinelli left her comfortable city garden to join a botanist colleague in search of the rare Seabeach Amaranth--one of our many native species that is in danger of extinction. The result of the ensuing seven-year odyssey, Stalking the Wild Amaranth is a work of science and a work of art. Marinelli tells the story of her discovery that contemporary gardening is out of sync with theories evolving on the frontiers of science and philosophy. She also tells of her quest for a new garden art that nurtures a greater richness and variety of earthly life. Inspired by the legacy of Henry David Thoreau, Marinelli bls history, horticulture, erudition, and personal insight into a narrative that ponders the relationship between humankind and nature. She fleshes out a vision for a new, ecologically wise landscape art, disagreeing ultimately with those who insist that growing native plants is the only way to recover our environmental equilibrium. Gardeners, she writes, should be free to experiment, to let our imaginations run wild, to learn how to be the creators of biodiversity as well as the preservers and restorers.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

238 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I have read too many gardening books. Although this book was well-written and pleasant, it wandered among too many topics, teasing me without giving me real information or drawing any conclusions (aside from "species are going extinct due to development and our methods of gardening and landscaping will have to change; plant native species and not invasives"). It does contain some interesting descriptions of futuristic gardens. Perhaps the information contained in this book was new in 1998 and has just become standard knowledge over the past ten years.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very hard to read, maybe because I don't read too many gardening books, but I did learn a lot, for example why they had such small windows many years ago, and what pesticides and herbicides are doing to our water supply. So I'm glad I read it, but I had to take it in small bites, not in great gulps, as I am used to reading.

[Eliot Fiend · Rating 3 out of 5]

the second half is better than the first half. generally good book about the history of gardening, rhetoric of "native" vs "invasive/nonnative," well-worthwhile questions about what "native plants" refers to and generally how gardeners and landscapers can be part of the larger movement to preserve/restore ecosystems and wild spaces. it's overall a history of landscaping/gardening, loosely.