A beautifully designed full-color personal account of what it means to become a gardener
filled with specially commissioned color photography watercolors and fine art. To make her
new house in Connecticut truly feel like home Catie Marron decided to create a garden. But
while she was familiar with landscape design she had never grown anything. A dedicated reader
with a lifelong passion for literature Marron turned to the library of gardening books she'd
collected to glean advice from a variety of writers on gardening and horticultural topics both
grand and small. Marron's quest to become a gardener however was about more than learning the
basics about mulch or which plants work best in the shade. She sought something far more
elusive: to identify the core qualities and characteristics that make a person a gardener and
an understanding of what a garden could mean to her as it had to multitudes of other gardeners
over the centuries. In Becoming a Gardener Catie Marron chronicles her transformation into a
gardener over the course of eighteen months seeding the details of her experience with rich
advice from writers as diverse as Eleanor Perényi and Karel Capek Penelope Lively and Jamaica
Kincaid. As she digs deeper into her readings and works in the garden itself Marron not only
discovers the essence of gardening but in the words of Michael Pollan the endlessly engrossing
ways that cultivating a garden attaches a body to the earth. A delightful blend of informed
opinion personal reflection and practical advice Becoming a Gardener explores topics as
varied as the composition of dirt the agricultural wisdom of avid kitchen gardeners George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson the healing power of digging in the soil and the beauty of
finding solitude in nature. Throughout Marron carefully plants special illustrated features
such as musings on the merits (and detriments) of the rose essential tools moonlight
gardening children's books which feature gardens and her favorite gardens around the world.
Also included is an annotated list of recommended writers books and films related to gardens
and gardening and a monthly to-do calendar. Featuring specially commissioned illustrations by
the Danish team All the Way to Paris and stunning photographs by acclaimed photographer
William Abranowicz that capture the pastoral beauty of Marron's Connecticut garden Becoming a
Gardener is a very special and moving portrait of life and the enduring power of literature and
nature that is sure to become an instant classic.
