Book Review: Gardening for a lifetime

This is a book that gardeners of any and every age and gardening style should read. We all tend to go over the top when we have oodles of energy, but for many reasons whether it be age or illness energy levels may decrease.

Importantly the author is a perfectionist, which may ring a bell with some of us, and over time this unfortunately got the better of her and the garden she's been expanding and tending for the past 40 years. But more importantly, she didn't give up. It would have been easy to move and get a smaller, more managable garden, but Sydney took the difficult decision to stay. She had help from many people over the years and they all played a big part in reorganising the garden.

Sydney has a thing for perenials, where I'm more of a shrub person. But both require energy to maintain. Sydney gives some rules about what a plant must be for it to remain in the garden, such as a reliable flowerer. Lists are also another important factor. Also friends and helpers can be a necessity at times.

I have to say that this book was a very easy, and very worthwhile, read. It's spurred me on to think about gardening, not necessarily with regards to getting older, but gardening with low energy. It's something that I'll be writing about in future posts.

Until then, buy this book! Or loan it from your library (which is where I got my copy). What it takes in time, it will give back more in common sense - some that we consider already, some that we needed reminding of and some that we'd yet to learn.

   

Own or Loan:         Loan
Read Again:           No
Recommend:         Yes
Overall out of Five:3