An Ecology of Enchantment: A Year in the Life of a Garden

Slow, gentle, pensive, and occasionally very funny, Des seems to be someone who would make a true and open friend. I enjoyed this read in my own sweet time, nipping off bites here and there while I had afternoon tea or just before bedtime reading. I start with the word slow - not as a criticsm - far from it, but as a description of the unfolding paragraphs that draw you into an event or garden scene. Without pouring bucket after bucket of Words over your head the author bares his passion and pain in his garden. I can identify with many of the triumphs and failures, but I also think a nongardener who enjoys biographies of real people going about their real lives would enjoy this in the same way I can read of racehorse stables without ever wanting to own one. Des Kennedy has a sound grasp of the English language and, except for the very rare overworked sentence, he plays with words as joyfully and freely as an artist does with watercolors. In his chapter 'Ever So Blue' he made me hunger for blue as if I had been starved, writing down names and looking them up, even becoming a tad anxious in case my garden be denied anchusa due to availability or climate. In case you've been disapointed in other garden biographies, try this one, while gentle and lyrical, it is not a hard slog.