I have just completed Old Herbacious by Reginald Arkell. I discovered this book when searching Amazon for garden literature. I am most interested in the stories the garden inspires so when I uncovered the Modern Library Gardening series I felt I had struck gold. I ordered this book along with Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi.
The series was compiled by author Michael Pollan. Each book contains an introduction to the series and this is a quote from the final paragraph:
The books I have chosen for this series are the classics that form the backbone of this tradition. What you won't find on this particular shelf are reference works and strictly how-to books; there's plenty of how-to here, but the emphasis is more along the line of how-to-think-about-it than how-to-do-it. Even the oldest among them will be contemporary in the best sense, offering a still-vibrant voice in the fack-fence conversation gardeners have been conducting at least since the time of Pliny.
Old Herbaceous is a journey of a man who began life as nobody's child and grew to be a man of great importance in his community. The book begins with the older man sitting in his cottage. Through his memories, I grew fond of the child who wins the local flower growing contest with wild forget-me-nots and became deeply moved and touched during the final conversation between he and his lady.
The book is a sentimental journey that gives one a glimpse of the old English gardens during the end of the Victorian era and how the gardens along with the people changed during World War I and even more so during and after World War II. The evolution and transition of a man and the garden he tends is moving and touching.
This is one book every gardener should read at least once. Because I have a tendency to stop and start reading when trying to get through a book, I actually read most of this book twice. I could read it right now again but I would love to uncover the riches of Green Thoughts. Once finished, I am sure I will want all of the books in the series.
