What a lovely book Between Gardens: Observations on Gardening, Friendship, and disability by Carol Graham Chudley and Dorothy Field turned out to be! Composed of letters written between 1995 and 1996, it was originally Carol’s idea. She wanted to write a book about gardening and was having a hard time knowing where to start. She thought that by exchanging letters about gardening with her friend Dorothy she would be able to clarify her thoughts and write her book. But then the letters ended up becoming the book. The letters are interspersed with beautiful garden photography taken mostly by Dorothy and excerpts from Carol’s diary.
Carol has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that has become debilitating to the point that, by the end of the book, she can no longer do much in the garden herself but has to direct her husband to the do the work. But even as her disease takes aways her ability to work in the garden, she remains a vital part of it, observing its changes and the animals that visit it.
Dorothy and Carol had agreed to correspond for a year. They live not far from each other so there were also in-person visits which I’m sure helped them keep their letters focused on gardening. After the year was up and the correspondence ended, they decided they missed it too much and in 1997 started a second year of letters. These letters are not included in the book.
What does one write about gardening for an entire year? Is there really that much to say? Oh yes. The two of them share memories of learning to garden, their gardening philosophies, stories about certain plants in the garden, gardening failures and successes and surprises, and always observations about what is going on in their gardens in the here and now.
Carol has a rather easy going approach to gardening, for her it has always been easy. All you have to do is dig a hole, put a seed or plant in it and water when needed. If the plant doesn’t thrive then try something else. She believes that a green thumb means finding plants that grow easily in the various spots of the garden and then letting them do their thing. Dorothy didn’t find gardening so very easy at first and only came to find it easier through many years of trial and error. I thought it was really interesting how they both saw learning to garden and their accumulating failures and successes so differently. I always thought gardening was easy too so Dorothy’s insisting it was hard was a surprise for me like it was for Carol. I imagine whether we think gardening is easy or hard might have something to do with personality and self-confidence, at least in part.
What was really wonderful to read was when they would each talk about the history of plants in their respective gardens, where they came from, who gave them a cutting, why a plant was given a place to begin with. Carol remarks in one of her letters,
Gardens are such a mnemonic mosaic, any detail having the possibility of triggering layered associations to people and moments past, so much remember. Like Proust’s madeleines.
My strawberry patch began as a gift of five plants from a former coworker who was thinning her patch. The annual phlox and tansy that spring up in my yard every year migrated from my next neighbor’s no longer existent garden. Joe had a wild patch of backyard and when his wife died and he moved out to senior housing, the new occupant chopped it all down and it is now grassed over. But the tansy and phlox found a new home in my garden. There are plantings made in memory of, and annuals that take me back to childhood. A garden really is full of memories.
I very much enjoyed this book and its quiet gentleness. If you love nature or gardening yourself and enjoy reading letters too, you will very likely find this book as delightful as I did.
I’m in the gardening is hard camp. In order to create a successful organic garden you must bring the eco-system back into balance. This includes not just plants and soil but worms, insects, birds amd mammals that must all be working well together. It is almost impossible when you all you have control over is a couple hundred square feet of garden in hundreds of square miles of terribly out-of-balance chemical lawn monoculture. Yet, somehow, I think this trying to accomplish the impossible is a greater part of the fun.
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severalfourmany, when you put it like that it does sound hard! 🙂 I’ve only ever gardened organically and still never thought it hard. I have sandy soil so I only ever think about what plants tolerate it best and I am always adding compost from my bin every year and mulch like crazy. I consider what plants “like” each other and what plants keep bad bugs away and what bring good bugs and let nature sort out the rest. I take a sort of survival of the fittest approach and as a result I have great successes and great failures and I always have fun 🙂
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I gardened with my one-year-old today. I realised it was a little out of hand when I took him down to the back fence. He kept falling over the weeds and calling ‘Mama! Mama!’ in alarm, even though he had hold of my leg.
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Ophelia, LOL, it’s amazing how fast weeds can get out of hand isn’t it? Weeds are especially good at hiding under other plants. I walk by a bed one day and all looks fine and the next day there are suddenly very tall weeds everywhere. Where did those comes from????
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I was weeding one time and a little girl walked past and said (hushed tones) ‘mummy, it looks like a jungle!’
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Oh Ophelia! This made me giggle!
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When it was decided within the family that my mother could no longer live on her own but had to come and live with me, one of the last things I did after re-doing the inside of her house (for someone else to live in and make their memories) was to turn my attention to her garden. Absolutely everything grew for her – even things that should not grow well in coastal Georgia. She’d stick something in the ground and it would thrive. I transferred what I could..the cana, the amaryllis, some lilies and roses…to my garden. But I’m not the gardener she was. At 93 she hasn’t much stamina for gardening, but she loves to go out and cut flowers and bring them into the house, so I’m determined to do my best this year and give her something to snip. The plants I managed to transfer are wonderful reminders that life is a process and after the dying back in winter, spring always brings renewal. Bet I’d love this book.
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Grad, your mother’s garden must have been amazing. Good for you though in moving some of her plants to your own yard. She might not have much stamina for gardening any longer but I bet she has lots of gardening knowledge she would be willing to share. You are right, plants and a garden are a reminder that life is a process. I think that’s why I have never found growing things hard; it’s never been about the final result. Though of course when the results turn out brilliantly I never hesitate to take full credit 🙂
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What a wonderful sounding book–lots of good things–not only nature but correspondence. I am not a very good gardener, but it has to do with both being lazy and not having a very well situated yard for best sun. With a little work and persistance I am sure I could manage something, but the heat and humidity of mid-summer usually zap me. Still, I think I would definitely appreciate a book like this. Maybe someday I’ll turn into a gardener–you never know!
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Danielle, you probably would find this enjoyable for the nature/observation aspect of the letters. They are very Thoreauvian (is that a word?) sometimes. I always get zapped by mid-summer heat and humidity too but this year I am going to try early mornings on weekends to keep up with everything. It’s hard when you don’t have a lot of sun, but not impossible. You never know, you just might blossom into a gardener one of these days inspired by one of your nature books 🙂
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Like Carol, I’ve had to hand my garden over to someone else and it has been really difficult finding someone who didn’t want the neat pristine lawn type garden that you see in all the gardening books. Fortunately, I seem to have at last found such a person and I hope the garden will be in batter shape this summer than last. This book sounds a delight and I shall get it on the library list as soon as possible.
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Alex, too bad you’ve had to give over your garden work but I am glad you have finally found someone with a compatible garden vision. That’s the thing about gardens, isn’t it? They are such personal creations. I hope the book is available at your library!
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The past few years, I’ve found I’ve really loved the nature/gardening books I read which I never expected. I’m a rotten gardener and kill most plants with great ease. So reading about it is a much safer way of proceeding! Interesting to hear CFS get a mention too – there are still so few accounts of it.
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Litlove, I’ve always liked gardening books, but I am growing to like nature books more and more. Carol’s CFS was terrible and hard to manage. It was the 1990s and not many doctors knew about it or understood it and when treating her often did more harm than good.
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