Dear Friends,
It’s that time of year again for holiday gift making and gift giving. Possibly you are one of those fantastically super organized holiday spirits finished with your holiday shopping, or even more probably, you’re not in the mood for another holiday commercial. If so, please forgive, but I am writing to suggest that my book Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! ~ Notes from a Gloucester Garden, which I both wrote and illustrated, makes a wonderful holiday gift. If you already own a copy, perhaps you will agree that it would make a thoughtful gift for that someone on your list who loves to garden, or a young couple who may have recently purchased a home and needs sound advice, or someone who simply likes to read about flowers, butterflies, garden lore, and garden-making.
This is a link to the Press Page of my blog, where you can read excerpts of reviews by The Boston Globe’s Carol Stocker, Bloomsbury Review, Patriot Ledger, North American Butterfly Association, and more. With spending any spare hours blogging and with my video projects and garden design newsletter, I am embarrassed to say that my website has not been updated in over a year, however, both the Book Page and Story Page on my website provide more information about Oh Garden!
Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! ~ Notes from a Gloucester Garden is available at Toad Hall, and wherever fine books are sold.
Excerpted from the introduction ~
We all carry within us the image of a home to create and a garden to tend. Perhaps you dream as I do of a welcoming haven to foster family bonds and friendships and to rejoice in life’s journey. The garden and the home to which it belongs becomes a memory catcher to weave a life’s tapestry.
To imagine a garden paradise one must live in one’s home to listen to its own particular music. Gradually, by degrees, the idea of the garden will grow. A home and a garden should look as though they had grown up together and will when one takes the time and necessary thought. A garden cannot be hurriedly created. Delicious, blissful pleasure is derived from the garden’s use as a continuation of the home.
Our gardens provide a safe harbor from hectic lives, a place to celebrate life and an opportunity to express our creativity. The garden is an inviting sanctuary to guide one through the rhythms and harmonies of the natural world. Planted to nurture the imagination and hearten the soul, a “new” cottage garden is a whimsical, exuberant intermingling of scented flowers and foliage, fresh fruit, and savory herbs.
As a designer, I believe I am here to channel ideas for the benefit of many. This book is my communication of a profound desire to share with readers the immeasurable joy gleaned from creating a personal paradise of one’s own making.
The illustrations are of flowers, songbirds, and butterflies I love to draw and to paint, and selected because they only become more beautiful when intimately observed.
A poetic world lies waiting to be discovered. Let us open the garden gate and take a step within.
And Joe Garland’s lovely blurb for the book’s jacket:
“Drawn by the tender magic of her brush, one feels somehow renewed under the spell of the author’s singular warmth as we stroll within these pages in the intimacy of the secret garden she reveals.”
~ Joseph Garland, author and historian