Thoughtful Gardening: Great Plants Great Gardens Great Gardeners

by Robin Lane Fox

Thoughtful Gardening is based on Robin Lane Fox's own selection from his widely admired FT column, which he has rewritten and amplified with new chapters to take readers on a highly enjoyable journey through each season of the gardening year. It draws on his lifetime of practical gardening, including his years as Garden Master of New College, Oxford, and contains many memories of fellow gardeners, from Christopher Lloyd to Nancy Lancaster. The book is essential reading for anyone setting out on a new garden or taking stock of one. It takes a critical look at fashions of the moment and is full of advice, ranging from problems with badgers to how to take root-cuttings or choose flowering trees, as well as examples of gardens at home and abroad which Robin Lane Fox has visited over many years. Thoughtful Gardening combines a principled view of the craft of gardening with dozens of new ideas for planting and visiting, and touching reminders of the power of literature and art to deepen what we see and realize in gardens of our own.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is a book of essays by an english gardening expert who wrote a gardening column for the financial times. he is conservative, fond of culling badgers and hunting foxes, and brings his politics right into the garden. the book itself was a series of 3 or 4 page essays, each linked to the next by the first paragraph. it was full of discussion of plants by their latin names, so I often had no clue what he was talking about. it was extremely specific to english gardening, with references to the addresses of nurseries where he purchased this or that hybrid. he also likes to tell you, for instance, what number bus you take in florence to get to the gardening he's talking about. he at least is not a global warming denier, but he just takes note of it to discuss what plants might be possible to grow now that weren't before. I kept reading it because I don't like to leave books unfinished, and because I figure I was picking up *something*, even just that rhododendrons are native to china. the author was opinionated and annoying but I suppose he knows what he is talking about. I very much doubt he and I have anything like the same taste.

[Florence Minowa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I regret to say this isn't a fresh review. I read this over ten years ago but even now I still distinctly recall how much I enjoyed reading this book. It was one of the first books on gardening that I picked up and in fact it was because of the way Fox gave so much character to plants and creatures that I developed an interest in gardening. I particularly loved the chapter on the vine-weevil.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on columns that Lane-Fox wrote for the FT, I enjoyed the shortness of the chapters. The author is incredibly opinionated, which can be entertaining, but in places the relevance to gardens is rather tangential. This kind of garden writing is an upper-class pursuit in Britain, and Lane-Fox is no exception.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'autore chiaramente conosce l'argomento e questo lo porta ad avere un atteggiamento decisamente troppo supponente. Detto questo il libro offre un piacevole excursus attraverso giardini inglesi principalmente e potrebbe essere un bel regalo per chi ama il genere.

[Bernhard Pleschko · Rating 2 out of 5]

not enough about thoughtful gardening (whatever it may be) and quite old style

[Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

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