A Garden by the Sea: A Practical Guide and Journal

This was a very informative read. I have gotten so many great ideas and will be using many of them in my own coastal garden. This is much more than a typical gardening how-to book. There is so much wisdom here and also some interesting facts. Organic gardening is my first love and I was pleased to see Ms. Hadley insist on it in her own garden. A Garden by the Sea reads like a story as well as a great resource for gardening information. I agree with the other reviews here, it is like talking with a friend. This book has become a treasured addition to my library.

Very helpful guide which includes many ideas on how to create and maintain a garden on the sea or exposed to a lot of wind. I like the fact that it suggests all non-pesticide solutions for pests, fertilizing, etc.

It is always so satisfying to discover a book that treats its subject in a way to make it interesting to any and all readers: Simon Winchester's book The Professor and the Madman about the birth of the Oxford English Dictionary; Dava Sobel's book on Longitude; Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon on depression - the list is long and always growing. Happily, Leila Hadley's book, A Garden by the Sea, easily secures a place on my short list of nonfiction books that stretch well beyond their topics, captivating the general reader and gardener alike. I have two black thumbs, yet continue to use them to turn the pages of A Garden by the Sea, marveling at Ms. Hadley's descriptions of her beloved garden, her unusual life and travels, and the changing seasons as viewed from the shores of the Northeastern seacoast. There is plenty of practical knowledge about how to cultivate an organic seaside garden: climate maps, Latin names of plants, planting depths, garden pests, seasonal considerations, etc., but it is her ruminations away from the hardcore information that make me want to take trowel and hoe in hand. My favorite chapter is about her Dream Garden, which encompasses a white garden and a moonlit garden: "The attraction of a white garden is that it gleams in the evening. . . lovely by day, pale-petaled scented flowers become magical by starlight, especially with a birdbath to reflect moonbeams, and the light of pierced brass Moroccan lanterns. " I have become inspired to green my thumbs and find a patch of soil, even if it's just off my Manhattan apartment's fire escape, and grow my "jungle of blue morning glories in terracotta pots on a New York trelllised balcony . . . no larger than a bath mat." And eventually, as Hadley cheerfully prophesizes, create my own "thing of beauty that's a job forever."

I LOVE this book and I agree with the following starred review in Publishers Weekly from February 28th. "All my life, I've known gardens, grown gardens," writes Hadley at the start of this captivating chronicle and guide. The author of the travel memoirs Give Me the World and A Journey with Elsa Cloud grew up believing that cultivating plants and flowers was an indispensable part of any good life (her grandmother was a friend of the great British garden designer Gertrude Jekyll). Hadley was steeped in the notion that truly beautiful gardens were composed with restraint and harmony. Size and extravagance was never the point. She has cultivated gardens all over the world, from South Africa to California, but one of her favorites remains a "jungle of blue morning glories in terracotta pots" on a Manhattan balcony "no larger than a bathmat." In 1990, her husband, the philanthropist Henry Luce III, presented her with a cliff-top house and five acres of beach-front property on Fishers Island, off the shore of Connecticut, and Hadley learned to expand her sense of what it means to be harmonious and restrained in the dramatic conditions of the sea. Combining a wealth of practical information with the eye and the verve of a born explorer, observer and artist, following the seasons and the passsing years, Hadley details how to create a garden that is organic on every level--matching and enchancing the environment and all its inhabitants. "The way Hank works a room at cocktail parties, chatting with everyone he knows, exchanging remembrances, catching up on what's going on at the moment, is the way I walk about the garden in the early morning in June." In this gorgeously written and photographed book, Hadley reveals what it is about gardening that is exquisitely temporal and timeless, down to earth and divine. This book will make everyone want to pick up a trowel. 200 color photos.

I was given a copy of "A Garden by the Sea" as a gift from one gardener to another. This book reads like a journal of experiences, successes and disappointments, not at all like a "how to" or instructional manual that does little more than induce sleep. Instead, one gets the feeling they are a cherished guest, being given a tour of Leila Hadley's beautiful home and garden while sipping some refreshing iced tea. Each area of her garden has a story, from beginning to end so you know how much love and work went into creating such a place of beauty. There is wonderful information on organic gardening, attracting birds and fending off the unwanted creatures in your garden. I especially enjoyed knowing mistakes are common to all of us and there is always another season to make things right again. You will learn how to invite beautiful butterflies to your garden and how to keep them there by avoiding harmful sprays and chemicals. The book is full of information and recipes for natural foods and tonics to keep your garden safe and beautiful as well as references to locate many of the items you may want to buy. Leila Hadley's love for the beauty of nature, her appreciation for all living things and her desire to share this beauty was evident on every page. I give this book five stars because it was entertaining, informative and left me feeling like I just spent a relaxed afternoon with a friend.