Flora Britannica

Dominique Browning

Paths of Desire: The Passions of a Suburban Gardener

With the same warmth, wisdom, wit, and accessibility that readers have come to love and trust in her monthly column, House & Garden editor in chief Dominique Browning offers this lively, charming, and instructive story of restoring a neglected suburban garden. When a retaining wall in Browning's New York suburban garden collapsed, she was forced into action. Paths of Desire is the enchanting, amusing, and moving account of making a garden -- and confronting the essence of suburban gardening, with its idiosyncratic ecosystem. This meant struggling with depraved skunks and raccoons, marauding teenagers, plastic jungle gyms, toppling garbage cans, uncontrollable eyesores, potholed drives, and all the grinding, honking, and buzzing of the neighborhood. Browning's delightfully frank prose conveys the very sense of being deep in a garden, with all its organic smells and textures, and the myriad joys of deciding what to plant and watching as the vision is realized. It contains a rich store of advice and illustrative anecdotes for enthusiasts and novices alike, as Browning amusingly documents the missteps she took in the planning of her garden and the satisfactions of finally getting it ...

Lawrence D. Griffith

Flowers and Herbs of Early America

A detailed look at early American flowers and herbs, with expert advice on creating a garden with historically accurate plants Hounds-tongue. Ragged robin. Costmary. Pennyroyal. All-heal. These plants, whose very names conjure up a bygone world, were among the great variety of flowers and herbs grown in America's colonial and early Federal gardens. In this sumptuously illustrated book, a leading historic plant expert brings this botanical heritage back to life.Drawing on years of archival research and field trials in Colonial Williamsburg's gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, Lawrence Griffith documents fifty-six species of flowers and herbs and provides details on how they were cultivated and used. For each plant, an elegant period hand-colored engraving, watercolor, or woodcut is presented along with glorious new photographs by Barbara Temple Lombardi.This book is a dazzling treat for armchair gardeners and for those who have visited and admired the famous gardens of Colonial Williamsburg. It is also an invaluable companion for twenty-first-century gardeners who will appreciate the specific advice of a master gardener on how to plan, choose appropriate species for, and maintain a ...

Andrea Wulf

Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation

A groundbreaking look at the Founding Fathers and their obsession with gardening, agriculture, and botany by the author of Magnificent Rebels and New York Times bestseller The Invention of Nature. - "Illuminating and engrossing." -- The New York Times Book Review For the Founding Fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions: a conjoined interest as deeply ingrained in their characters as the battle for liberty and a belief in the greatness of their new nation. Founding Gardeners is an exploration of that obsession, telling the story of the revolutionary generation from the unique perspective of their lives as gardeners, plant hobbyists, and farmers. Acclaimed historian Andrea Wulf describes how George Washington wrote letters to his estate manager even as British warships gathered off Staten Island; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson's and John Adams's faith in their fledgling nation; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of environmentalism. Through these and other stories, Wulf reveals a fresh, nuanced portrait of the men who created our nation.