A review by cherylanntownsend
Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden by Diane Ackerman
5.0
This book was a delight. Her sheer joy in gardening and nature were enlivening. It made me look deeper and longer at my own. (It also had me moving my obedient plants to new locations.)
Filled with garden view reminiscing and avid notations, one can’t help but learn a bounty of horticultural knowledge, as well as unrelated trivial as her mind wanders. Fascinating! I have a small notebook filled with her observations and revelations. Oh, and her poetic mind assuredly adds to the joy of reading.
Enjoyed her roaming from topic to topic, often with each new paragraph indentation. I identify with how her mind flits, like a hummingbird, from one to another thought.
Quite the homage to John Muir “the ultimate nature mystic,” is given as she refers to her own “at-one-ment”... a “word” I intend to use. She also devotes appreciation to numerous in her chapters. Found the paragraphs expounding Gertrude Jekyll quite fascinating. Her intense senses (differentiating the sounds of trees from species to species.) And how her study of art segued into her garden design.
Her mathematical car/garden wheelbarrow is classic. Every gardener can identify. (It’s exactly why I bought my van!) Then the 2nd gear Bug follow up woke my husband up with my snickering. (Spoiler!)
There’s just so much observation and notation as she takes us from season to season, thought to action, that you truly feel as if you are in her garden with her, snacking in cherries, in situ, eyes wide open. Each sense is brought to attention and you find yourself looking out into your own garden with a keener eye, sense of smell-hearing-touch as each chapter ends. A delightful read. A treasure to shelve.
Filled with garden view reminiscing and avid notations, one can’t help but learn a bounty of horticultural knowledge, as well as unrelated trivial as her mind wanders. Fascinating! I have a small notebook filled with her observations and revelations. Oh, and her poetic mind assuredly adds to the joy of reading.
Enjoyed her roaming from topic to topic, often with each new paragraph indentation. I identify with how her mind flits, like a hummingbird, from one to another thought.
Quite the homage to John Muir “the ultimate nature mystic,” is given as she refers to her own “at-one-ment”... a “word” I intend to use. She also devotes appreciation to numerous in her chapters. Found the paragraphs expounding Gertrude Jekyll quite fascinating. Her intense senses (differentiating the sounds of trees from species to species.) And how her study of art segued into her garden design.
Her mathematical car/garden wheelbarrow is classic. Every gardener can identify. (It’s exactly why I bought my van!) Then the 2nd gear Bug follow up woke my husband up with my snickering. (Spoiler!)
There’s just so much observation and notation as she takes us from season to season, thought to action, that you truly feel as if you are in her garden with her, snacking in cherries, in situ, eyes wide open. Each sense is brought to attention and you find yourself looking out into your own garden with a keener eye, sense of smell-hearing-touch as each chapter ends. A delightful read. A treasure to shelve.