In the Eye of the Garden

by Mirabel Osler

Book Overview

In the Eye of the Garden brings the author's lyric gift to the topic of gardening. Osler looks at her own horticultural stirrings and shares her musings about human life in the garden, touching on a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0025940651
• ISBN13: 9780025940659
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Well-written, wide-ranging reflections on gardening

Mirabel Osler, author of "A Gentle Plea for Chaos," here offers a brief but intense selection of essays on various aspects of the garden. She draws upon her own experiences as a traveler and/or gardener in Corfu, Thailand, Provence, New York City, and rural England, and as an insightful reader of literary garden classics. This is not a how-to book, but a collection of meditations, illustrated with lovely black-and-white images from Osler's library of old gardening books. Some topics touched upon are: the Violet family; the admirable rigor of French gardens; the mysterious spiritual alchemy of gardening; and order versus romantic abandon in garden design. I think Rosemary Very said it well in her praise of the book, printed on the back jacket: "There is no other writer with quite the same approach to gardening as Mirabel Osler.... It is whimsical yet down to earth, imaginative yet full of facts, both historical and horticultural. Old-time gardeners will be refreshed and new gardeners will be inspired."