Read this book!
Green Thoughts: A writer in the garden by Eleanor Perenyi
‘Eleanor Perenyi takes her place among a number of writers who wrote one terrific book on gardening that may be read over and over with unfailing pleasure.’[1]
During the winter, when the weather was rubbish and there wasn’t much to do in the garden, I read Green Thoughts, A writer in the garden by Eleanor Perenyi.
It wasn’t available at my local library so I ordered a preloved copy from World of Books. I’m glad I did because my book is now in no state to be returned to any library! Many of its pages have their corners folded down and there’s pencilled underlining and scribbled notes all over.
Green Thoughts is made up of 72 essays, some short, some longer and they are all a joy to read. Eleanor’s voice is lively, informative and certain which I find immensely satisfying especially when what she says is spot on. For example, in her essay, Paths, she writes, ‘one is well advised to take note of those routes already established by human traffic – for if these are ignored in favour of some alternative way, be it ever so attractive it won’t be used.’[2]
Nobody walks on the paved path on the right side of our garden.
To get to the bottom, everybody tramples straight up the middle of the lawn.
Eleanor is so right.
She is also fabulously honest and direct.
Writing about a caryopteris and reflecting on gardening advice that led her to believe it benefitted from being killed back by a severe winter or a severe prune, she writes, ‘Mine haven’t taken this view, and as for pruning them, they haven’t given me the opportunity. Once killed back, they have chosen to stay that way.’[3] And that is how that particular essay, Blues, ends. One short (sorry about the pun) killer sentence.
‘Once killed back, they have chosen to stay that way.’
Brilliant.
(Also, Eleanor’s essays almost all have one-word titles which, I think, conveys a sense of, “this all you need to know about this subject”. I love her confidence!)
Eleanor Perenyi is not only my kind of writer, she’s also my kind of gardener. As I do now, she loved mulches and compost and was appalled by pesticides and poisons.
I say ‘loved’ because she was a couple of generations older than me and having been born in 1918, she passed away in 2009. (She was 91 when she died, proving her own hypothesis that gardening contributes to longevity.) And although Eleanor Perenyi was writing about gardening in the 20th century, her advice is still relevant today.
Whilst writing an essay titled Perennials, she blows the idea of succession, which I try not to think about because I find it mind-blowing, apart.
She describes ‘the idea that there must be at all times and in every quarter a mass of blooms’ as ‘nonsense.’
She writes, ‘I don't want a solid mass of flowers. It would exhaust the eye. Rather, I try to see that each of my four island beds has in it something for three seasons of the year and let it go at that.’
Wonderful.
And if that’s not wonderful enough, Eleanor ends Green Thoughts book by championing women:
‘… it was women who invented horticulture in the first place, women who ventured into the field and forest in search of wild plants, and women who domesticated them whilst men were still out chasing wild beasts. Women were the first gardeners.’[4]
Whether you are a woman or a man, if you love gardening, I urge you to get yourself a copy of Green Thoughts. It is a joy.
[1] Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts, A writer in the garden, Modern Library Edition, 2002, p. xi Introduction, Allen Lucy
[2] Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts, A writer in the garden, Modern Library Edition, 2002, p. 154
[3] Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts, A writer in the garden, Modern Library Edition, 2002, p. 39
[4] Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts, A writer in the garden, Modern Library Edition, 2002, p. 260