Book Review: A Way to Garden
A Way to Garden by Margaret Roach
Timber Press, 2019, 320 pp., $30
Twenty-one years ago, Margaret Roach wrote the first edition of her popular book, A Way to Garden. She hadn’t intended to write an updated version until she recently began to contemplate just how much has changed, in the world of horticulture and the environment as a whole, and in her own gardening style. A what a delightful update it turned out to be!
As she writes in her introduction, “A garden without a gardener is a jungle waiting to happen. But a gardener without a plot to till is likewise a very sorry sight. This book is about both sides of the equation: the delicious organism that gardener and garden, once united, quickly become, as they ride the peaks and abysses of what the weather and life dish out. In this, the 21st-anniversary edition, the book is also about what happens when you stay in one place and keep digging holes, as I have.”
I first learned about Margaret Roach through the PBS program, “Growing a Greener World.” Host and executive producer, Joe Lamp’l, has featured Margaret in her beautiful garden in a few episodes. She has also been the guest on some of Joe’s podcasts and Margaret has her own podcast, “A Way to Garden”.
This book is organized into the phases of the garden year which, as the author explains, makes a lot of sense:
“I imagine the garden year as roughly parallel to the six seasons of my own life, from conception through birth and on to youth, adulthood, senescence, and finally death and afterlife. Moving from phase to phase takes months or years… in a case of a human; in the garden, it’s all packed into a single year, and then starts over, and over, even long after the gardener is gone.”
For example, the title of the first chapter is “Conception” and covers the months of January and February. In it, Margaret shares tips on perusing and shopping from seed catalogs, explains the importance of paying attention to the timing of blooms when searching for flowering plants, looking out your windows before planting in order to create a pleasing garden design, using a journal for observations or to record where you planted something, and emphasizing how a gardener should use hardiness zones as a guideline but pay attention to what happens in your garden and plant appropriately.
Margaret’s approach is one of garden wisdom and honesty about how she has learned so much over the years. I enjoyed her explanation on plant taxonomy, in which she gives insight into what descriptive Latin words mean.
The title for the second chapter is “Birth,” which translates into March and April in the garden. The author includes tips on gardening for birds. She is well-known for her love of birds as well as her desire to identify and learn about the ones in her garden and suggests how important it is to do your homework (especially by consulting field guides) so you know which birds (or insects and animals) are visiting your own garden.
Margaret also includes a detailed chart on when to start seeds and shares many useful tips on seed-starting. And so it goes throughout the garden year in this book.
The author provides many useful references and sources. They include field guides and websites for bird and insect information, as well as mail-order sources for seeds, bulbs and flowering plants for U.S., British and Canadian gardeners.
What did I particularly enjoy about A Way to Garden?
- Margaret’s conversational style, wit and self-deprecating manner, which made for a pleasant read and provided insight into this very experienced gardener. There were so many useful tips for me to put into practice in my own garden.
- Her approach for presenting this information throughout the year when it’s most important and applicable. I was excited about each part of a year in the garden, envisioning the tasks that need to be done and the positive aspects of a garden to be enjoyed.
- I appreciated finding recommendations of plants that just might do well in my zone 5b garden since Margaret has similar growing conditions in rural New York State.
- The stunning photographs (most of which were taken by the author) of her beautiful garden throughout the seasons.
A Way to Garden is charming, eye-opening and educational. I can’t imagine a better book to curl up with this winter and know I’ll be referring to it throughout each garden year.