How to make a garden on a difficult site. Here is Harris’s own garden in all four seasons. She shows how she did it, so can you. Under a weeping will, a site full of roots from other people’s tree (including the neighbor’s weeping willow), spring flood, summer drought. The photographs by Andreas Trauttmansdorff are dazzling. But this is way beyond a coffee table book, it’s practical. New gardeners will find the style comforting and helpful, experienced gardeners will get inspiration for new plant combinations.
“Seasons of My Garden is the loveliest, most amusing and inspiring book that I have read in the evolution of all-seasonal garden sense in our outpost of the empire….The garden the writing have grown and matured together, and Seasons is a “highwater mark” in an intensifying career. Each chapter has discerning commentary on visual value, culture, design placement, and companion plants…This is MH’s best book to date. It is beautiful, instructive, inspiring and great bedtime reading. “
Ann Milovsoroff, Pappus.
On the paperback:
“If you didn’t see it at the time, it’s worth a close look this time around. Harris…is one of those reassuring writers who really knows what what they’re talking about but also don’t take them themselves too seriously.”
?Patrick McCain
Here’s what the Toronto Star’s Kate Harries says about Seasons:
[Marjorie Harris]…has produced a real winner in SEASONS OF MY GARDEN (HarperCollins, hardcover, 160 pp, $39.95), a lovely book with photographs of arresting beauty by Andreas Trauttmansdorff.
There’s a satisfying read here, too, as Harris works from her checkerboard garden to illustrate her particular talent–the use of unusual and familiar alike in stunning plant combinations.
You’ll want to make a list while you read. Keep pen and paper handy and prepare to shop.
There may be life before gardening, but what life is there once a garden possesses your soul? Spend a year in the breathtaking garden of Marjorie Harris, Canada’s pre-eminent garden writer. Make the most of your own garden with advice from Canada’s gardening expert on garden design, plant selection and seasonal planting.
Marjorie Harris’ garden is long and narrow, located in the heart of a bustling city. It has seen four children, annual spring floods, too much shade, too much basketball — and, thanks to Marjorie’s gardening magic — a truly astounding procession of gorgeous annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs. Seasons of My Garden captures how Marjorie Harris has put her imagination, expertise and perseverance to work in this inauspicious space — and produced exquisite results season after season. Join her on a personal tour of an extraordinary work in progress — a year in her garden’s rich and varied life: its marvellous successes, its occasional failures, above all, its kaleidoscopic, ever-changing beauties and wonders.
Bursting with Andreas Trauttmansdorff’s spectacular photographs, Seasons of My Garden is filled with Marjorie Harris’ always-engaging reflections and observations on the garden’s?and the gardener’s?response to the changing seasons. In her trademark sparkling style, she offers a wealth of practical tips and down-to-earth problem-solving advice, as well as encouragement for any gardener, novice or sophisticate, with the desire to create a garden of distinction, even in the face of trying conditions. With creativity, planning, and the courage to try new plants and experiment with the ones you have, every garden plot, no matter how small the space or unpromising the climate, is a potential garden paradise.
This vividly documented tour of Marjorie Harris’ own garden is both a beautiful tribute to her vision and accomplishments and a tremendous practical resource for gardeners of all levels. Seasons of My Garden offers an inspiring blueprint for all aspiring gardeners and, with humour and the wisdom of many years’ careful work in the garden, provides a keen insight into the gardening life.