The Accidental Garden: Gardens, Wilderness, and the Space in Between
Charming ... On the one hand, The Accidental Garden is the fruit of Mabey’s dedicated attention to a specific place ... On the other hand, his attachment to his singular garden gives rise to reflections with broader applicability. The Accidental Garden contains such things as an enchanting meditation on varieties of roses, a foray into the history of the enclosure movement and a discussion of the moral permissibility of importing non-native plants ... Mabey ends by exclaiming, 'Most beautiful and wonderful!' And he’s right: It is.
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Aptly captures Mr. Mabey’s voice: earnest, thoughtful, but not so high-minded that it reduces the ideals of environmental stewardship to a joyless abstraction ... The author’s schemes of observation are immersive.
Both engaging and erudite ... Elegantly written with discursive retreats to discuss this poem or that piece of folklore or idea ... We have a few chapters of thoughtful environmental rambles before Mabey gets down to the nitty gritty of how, exactly, he and Polly faced their plot. I did laugh when he admitted how ruthless they were ... Sadly, we hear very little from this point about Polly’s parts of the garden. If I’d had my way, there would have been a map and Polly herself been given a chapter or two ... It is a hoot to read his thoughts on what would now be called 'wildlife gardening' ...Suddenly he is off, offering fascinating insights into the worlds of plants, insects, different species of flower, what goes on underground in root-land and up high in tree canopies. This is part memoir, part naturescape and part gardening book. There is an unexpected and wonderful chapter on roses. There is also something much rarer in this book: wisdom. What a treat.
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