I was asked to list 15 books that have lingered on in my being since I first read them and on my list, I only put one garden book... Green Thoughts: A Writer in The Garden by Eleanor Perenyi published in 1981.
much talk about mistakes lately (to weed or to wait to weed with students), so here are two quotes from her section Failures...
Sooner or later every gardener must face the fact that certain things are going to die on him. It is a temptation to be anthropomorphic about plants, to suspect that they do it to annoy. One knows, after all, that they lead lives of their own: plant the lily bulb in the center and watch it come up under a brick near the edge; pull out a sick little bush and throw it on the compost heap, and ten to one, it will obstinately revive. Usually, though, gardening failures, like airplane crashes, are the results of 'human error,' of not reading the directions or paying attention. ...
Nevertheless, not all failures are self-imposed, the result of ignorance, carelessness or inexperience. It takes a while to grasp that a garden is not a testing ground for character and to stop asking, what did I do wrong? Maybe nothing. ...
Any fans of Perenyi out there? If you have not read the book, I hope in some way I have inspired you to look for this wonderful book.
