Gardener Biographies

To make her new house in Connecticut truly feel like home, Catie Marron decided to create a garden. But while she was familiar with landscape design, she had never grown anything. A dedicated reader with a lifelong passion for literature, Marron turned to the library of gardening books she’d collected to glean advice from a variety of writers on gardening and horticultural topics both grand and small.

Formed in 1988, Lush were part of the London gig scene during one of the most vibrant and creative periods in UK music. Now, Miki Berenyi tells all. The audiobook begins with her childhood of extremes. From the bohemian lifestyle of her father's social circle to the privileged glamour of her mother's acting career, Miki's young life was a blur of travel, celebrities and private schooling. But frequent relocation, parental neglect and the presence of her abusive grandmother resulted in crippling shyness, mental-health issues and a vulnerability. The route out of this hole was music.

When Page Dickey moved away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill, she left a landscape she had spent thirty-four years making, nurturing, and loving. She found her next chapter in northwestern Connecticut, on 17 acres of rolling fields and woodland around a former Methodist church. In Uprooted, Dickey reflects on this transition and on what it means for a gardener to start again. The sur­prise at the heart of the book? Although Dickey was sad to leave her beloved garden, she found herself thrilled to begin a new garden in a wilder, larger landscape.

Beyond the garden wall lies a wealth of cultivated plants, each with a unique tale to tell. In The Grove, award-winning writer and head gardener Ben Dark reveals the remarkable secrets of 20 commonly found species—including the rose, wisteria, buddleja, box and the tulip—encountered in the front gardens of one London street over the course of year.

The Camino de Santiago has been a journey for pilgrims for more than 1,000 years, testing—to varying degrees—their spirit, faith, and physical endurance. Lyndon Penner’s attention lies elsewhere. A renowned gardener and lover of literature, he revels in the plants, trees, and flowers that tell the history of the people and ecology of northern Spain. Brimming with wry observations—of nature, himself, and other pilgrims on the road—The Way of the Gardener reveals the beauty and the darkness of the human condition while underscoring the deeply fascinating nature of nature itself.

When Ohio newspapers published the story of Alice Chenoweth's affair with a married man, she changed her name to Helen Hamilton Gardener, moved to New York, and devoted her life to championing women's rights and decrying the sexual double standard. She became one of the most sought-after speakers on the 19th-century lecture circuit, published seven books and countless essays, supported herself, hobnobbed with the most interesting thinkers of her era, visited 22 countries, and was celebrated for her audacious ideas and keen wit.

In this warm, funny memoir Alan Titchmarsh takes us from gardener's apprentice to favourite TV presenter. When Alan left school at 15, little was expected of him. An 'O' level in art is not the most obvious passport to success, but in the ancient greenhouses of the local nursery Mrs T's little lad found his spiritual home, learning his trade and the strange ways of human nature.

The sudden withdrawal of British and American troops from Afghanistan in 2021, ended the 20 year war on terror, yet it also left Afghanistan to be reconquered by the Taliban. As violence and religious fundamentalism once again overwhelmed the region, thousands of Afghans who loyally served the British and American armies were left behind.

Wracked by guilt for breaking a childhood bond with her naturalist father and fearful for the future of the planet in light of the catastrophic impact of climate change, Annabel sets out on a personal journey of redemption. She seeks to reconnect with nature and wildlife in the one place she knows she can make a real difference – her own, barren, neglected garden. Guided by her eccentric, octogenarian neighbour, and with the ghost of her late father never far from her thoughts, Annabel begins to rediscover the therapeutic art of wildlife gardening.

מגדיר פרחים ריחני רב שנתי. יומן זיכרונות מאת גיבור ספרותי יוצא דופן; פרח תרח האסופי, בנו של שום איש, שמצא משמעות בקיומו בעולמם המופלא של הצמחים. בכתיבה שדומה למשב רוח קריר ביום חמסין, פורש בפנינו הסופר את זיכרונותיו של גנן אנגלי בן המאה ה־19, שהקדיש את חייו לערוגות הגן של בעלת אחוזה שפרשה עליו חסותה בגיל צעיר. בגן זה הוא הבשיל לבגרות בין הצמחים, הצליח לגדל תותים שהמתיקו טרם עונתם והיה לגנן עיקש ואמיתי.

Determined, imperious, flighty, charming, Beryl McBurnie was born in Trinidad and went to New York in the early 1940s to study dance and drama. She also made a name for herself as a dancer and singer, Belle Rosette. But she turned her back on the bright lights to return to Trinidad. There she continued the work she had begun before World War II, researching and performing the dances of the Caribbean. This book portrays the woman, explores the influences that shaped McBurnie and those whom she influenced in turn, and tells of her struggle to realize a vision she nurtured for decades.