Hi, I’m David Epstein. This is Growing Wisdom.
And today’s segment is about a book that I wrote called the Gardens of New England. And the book is a compilation of different pictures of gardens throughout New England including my garden here right in the backyard.
I’m pretty proud of the book. What I did was I wrote captions for each of the over 300 images of all the different gardens around New England. Michael Hubley took the pictures. And many of those gardens you can actually go visit. And that’s the great thing. It’s almost like your own tour guide book. If you’re going take this and go from the coast of Maine all the way down to Rhode Island, you could visit many of these gardens and compare his pictures with the ones that you’ll undoubtedly take.
So, I’ll read you from the book just a little bit. I’ll read you a couple of passages. The first one is actually my introduction and here are the first couple of sentences. “I remember as a young boy growing up in Portland, Maine taking a path through the woods to my grandmother’s house. The walk just took 50 minutes but it always felt longer. Along the way, I would see raspberries, ferns, and wildflowers. I would stop at a small pond before traversing the rest of the way under the dent shade of the majestic oak trees. To me this world was magical, all this life, these colors, these sounds. Finally, I would run through to a local farmer’s vegetable garden and to Nana’s back gate. The first flowers whose name I learned were the beautiful purple, bitter irises behind her house. They brought me a lot of happiness.”
So, that’s just the introduction. And then there’s also captions with each of the pictures. Here’s one that I particularly like. It’s called Enter Here and this is from York, Maine. “To garden is to create art. The plants—vibrant and muted; bold and soft, dark and light, warm and cool—are the paints we use to create our landscapes. In the beginning, the garden is there to greet us. When we leave, it is the last thing we see. From the smallest cottages to the largest mansions, our flowers, trees, and shrubs set the tone for the places we live and work.”
And I hope this book helps you set the tone for you live and work. And perhaps you’ve learned a few things about gardening and incorporate some of them into your own yards and your own space.
Again, it’s Gardens of New England. If you’d like an autographed copy of the book, send me an email at dave@growingwisdom.com and we will work that out, or you could just go online, you can go to twinlightspub.com or any of your favorite booksellers will have the book. Again, Gardens of New England. Thanks for listening. I’m Dave Epstein for Growing Wisdom.
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