Review by Booklist Review
As orioles flit, tadpoles leap, and Jack the Demon Cat stalks unsuspecting chipmunks, Roach muses on the nature of nature in a garden she has tended for 25 years. Roach would be the first to admit the garden has, in many ways, tended her, too, and she brings a Zen-like appreciation for the lessons gardens impart to those who are willing to watch, listen, and learn. Informed by the seasons, Roach also gardens with a spiritual respect for earth's basic elements. Water, in its frozen form, blankets trees in winter, while the land itself bursts forth in reassuring fecundity with spring's arrival. Summer blazes with fiery heat and color only to have it all drift away on autumn's chill winds. A pensive gardener, Roach is also passionate in her critique of trends and practices she views as harmful or unproductive, from the politics of seed selling to the pollution of streams. Now aging, along with her beloved garden, Roach, with grace and humor, assesses and accepts the inevitable changes that beset them both.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Popular garden writer Roach (I Shall Have Some Peace There) mingles personal reflections about her gardening life with helpful added sections that render nuts-and-bolts information. For example, she details her thoughts about laying out a bed with slow growers and young woody plants. "Not every woody thing is so happy to be kept on as tight a leash as a yew or privet will tolerate." Such reflections are followed by a new section that addresses how to keep deer at bay. The pattern of personal narrative coupled with practical guidelines carries the book along. Her insights are clever, animated, and expertly drawn. Yet the pacing can be jarring at times. She describes lingering in the garden in a captivating narrative voice, then shifts gears into a segment that compels the reader to grab a pen and notebook. Practical interruptions notwithstanding, the book is an insightful guide and a fun read. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Roach (And I Shall Have Some Peace There), creator of the superb website AWayToGarden.com, has penned a lyrical memoir sharing her love of gardening along with practical horticultural information. She looks back to her childhood but focuses on the years she has spent designing and maintaining her rural New York garden. Gardening with both her head and her heart, she weaves her spiritual connection to her garden into descriptions and cultural information for treasured plants while relating general gardening advice and ruminations on the trials (woodchucks, deer, the occasional snake) and rewards of country gardening. The book follows the seasons, from Roach struggling to break the ice in the pond to prevent resident frogs from dying to putting up produce, and it includes useful sidebars that expand on topics such as garden design, growing heirloom vegetables, and the politics of seed shopping. VERDICT An enjoyable journey through the year with a knowledgeable guide whose fascination with her garden and its inhabitants will delight readers. Strongly recommended to fellow gardeners.-Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Reflections on being saved, and finding happiness, through gardening. Early in the book, Roach (And I Shall Have Some Peace There, 2011, etc.) includes a quote from Bertrand Russell: "Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite." This conundrum encapsulates this third book from Roach, a longtime blogger and former editor for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. From the descriptions within, the author gardens in much the same way she writes--nothing is turned away, provided there's a suitable space for it. Roach considers the sounds of gardening, terminology, different pricings of what she grows to sell, childhood gardens, the passing of seasons--both for a garden and for a person--and the contributions of science toward the creation of a more pleasing experience of garden tending. The author is also unafraid of poking fun at herself and the many well-entrenched habits of gardening she cannot back away from--for example, having spent a lifetime gardening in long pants, she tried shorts only to relent within the half-hour, feeling that she was doing a disservice to the colors of the flowers with "the color of the canvas I provide with my tender flesh." Roach scatters gardening tips throughout the book, noting that other books provide more along those lines but that these tips are shared in the interest of spurring on readers to return to their own gardens. Many a gardener will likely find that motivation from this pleasant book.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
