A Man's Garden - Hardcover
A brightly illustrated guide to gardening from the male perspective accents the physical, goal-oriented aspects of the home garden patch. 10,000 first printing.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Right from its jacket image, which cribs shamelessly from the famous album-sleeve cover shot for Bruce Springsteen's virile classic Born in the U.S.A., A Man's Garden wants to let you know without question that it's aimed at REAL GUYS. It's evident in nearly every line of copy profiling 14 men around the country who keep king-size, unconventional, or otherwise extraordinary gardens, from this opener: "When you come upon the four massive Corinthian columns ... you know this is a man's garden" (why?) to ridiculous flourishes of rhetoric such as, "Ask a man why he gardens, why he feels compelled to push the earth around and wrestle crops from it." This overcompensation is all the funnier in light of double-entendres like the one directed (winkingly or not) at Manhattan-art-gallery-manager-turned-Connecticut-gardener Tim Mayhew, who, according to author Warren Schultz, "has given plenty of thought to men in the garden."
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Maybe this hypermasculinization of gardening was just a new angle to market a very pleasurable coffee-table book filled with lovely color photographs of 14 completely enchanting gardens--because that's exactly what this book is, and frankly, it doesn't matter whether they were cultivated by men, women, or hermaphrodites. There's nothing inherently manly or womanly about Pearl Fryar's fabulously surreal and almost erotically suggestive topiary in Bishopville, South Carolina, or the way the above-mentioned Mayhew drags no end of crumbling old statuary and curiosities into his lush verdure to create a kind of uniquely American ruins. Nor is there anything gender-specific about lawyer-cum-weekend-farmer Robert Kaufman's robust vegetable garden, which runneth over with 200 colorful and semirare varieties, or the Willie Wonka junkyard garden Felder Rushing has built up around his Jackson, Mississippi, home, complete with walkways embedded with Mardi Gras beads, whole "trees" of cobalt-blue pop bottles, and giant jack-o'-lanterns cut out of old tires painted bright orange. There's nothing particularly "American Joe" about the exquisite meditation garden Jeffrey Bale has nurtured on a tiny lot in a rundown part of Portland, Oregon, with its lush rhododendrons, potted bamboos, and Far East statuary, nor about David Alford's Blue Lake Ranch in Durango, Colorado, surrounded by a homegrown prairie exploding with the infinite color of irises, peonies, petunias, echinacea, rudbeckia, and calendula.
A Man's Garden isn't even a hardcore how-to so much as a handsome invitation to botanical reverie and inspiration (though utilitarians can suss out plenty of practical gardening wisdom along the way). So much for the "real-guy" angle. But then again, we all know books like this are meant to be bought by women as presents for their fathers, sons, or husbands--and that any man actually buying this book is probably buying it for his husband, too. --Timothy Murphy
Introduction
I"m tired of being told that gardening is woman"s work. I don"t like
the way my buddies roll their eyes when I tell them I"d rather weed a
border than watch a hockey game between Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, but
there"s no shame in being a gardening man. Farmers? Men. Landscape
architects? Men. Golf-course greenskeepers? Men. Plant breeders? Men.
How did the garden come to be seen as a woman"s domain? It"s not, you
know. There are 36 million male gardeners in America, a strong cadre
of real men with manly gardens. Granted, for many of them the
landscape begins at the sidewalk and ends at the front steps, and in
between there"s nothing but green, green grass. Hauling out the mower
every Saturday is the extent of their "gardening."
But plenty of men are real gardeners, who subscribe to a
masculine style of planting. Is there such a thing as a man"s garden?
You can bet your last six-pack there is. In fact, there are several
archetypal styles of men"s gardens, whose plants or design or
furnishings satisfy certain basic needs of a man"s psyche. Some men"s
gardens are playful, others are competitive. Some are places to fool
with tools. Many have decks and hammocks and built-in barbecue pits.
There might be a bocce court, a putting green, or even a quiet corner
where a man can sit and enjoy a cigar. A man"s garden may have
vegetables, and if it does, it certainly has tomatoes — monster
tomatoes, the biggest on the block. It may have a tall and unruly
flower border in a riot of colors. It probably has some old-
fashioned, unfashionable flowers. It may have cactuses or hedges or a
collection of roses or dahlias.
To me, the idea of testosterone in the garden seems
natural. I grew up surrounded by gardening men. Well, they weren"t
exactly gardening. This was not a leisure-time activity or a hobby;
it was serious business. These guys were farmers — shirt-sleeves-
rolled-up, cigarette-smoking, work-boot-wearing, wisecracking guys:
my dad, my uncle, my cousins. The men worked the fields, the women
kept house and planted little flower gardens beside the back door.
My father was the greatest influence on me. You had to take
only one look at him to be assured that gardening was a manly
activity. Six feet tall, 250 pounds, he was an all-city high school
football player who attended Notre Dame on an athletic scholarship.
In time, though, he gave up his scholarship to return home and help
his mother run the family farm.
A man does his duty. He takes care of his family, he works
the soil. Those were the unspoken rules I learned as a child. And
from the time I was twelve I worked beside my father, growing
vegetables. The business changed with the times, and eventually he
expanded the farm to include a greenhouse and a nursery. To some,
growing pansies might seem less manly than growing corn, but he took
to it easily. You could count on my dad being up at dawn every day
and at work not long afterward. You would find him in the greenhouse,
walking the aisles with a hose in his hand, whistling some dumb show
tune.
Every spring Dad would set aside an evening to plant a flower
garden beside the road. I"m sure he told himself that this was a
marketing ploy. That ornamental garden of annuals would catch the
eyes of passersby and show off our flowering goods to their best
advantage.
It was always the same garden. He would plow a long,
straight, narrow strip, rake it smooth, and mark it out with strings.
He"d start by planting a long straight row of red cannas right down
the center of the bed. On either side he put a row of "Apollo"
marigolds, then a row of red salvia, a row of shorter marigolds, and
finally, a row of red geraniums. It was bright. It was straight. It
was symmetrical and simple. It was red and orange and yellow. People
would drive by and, sure enough, some would stop to ask about those
tall red flowers. Most of those people were men.
That roadside garden attracted attention just as it was
supposed to and completely satisfied my dad. It didn"t matter that
there wasn"t an unusual plant in it, not a single curve or surprise
to be found. And, after spending all day hoeing long straight rows of
peppers or tomatoes, Dad would be in that garden at dusk on his
knees, pulling weeds from between the rows of flowers.
Over the years, my own gardens have had some of my father in
them. Oh, sure, they"ve had raised beds and mulch and perennials as
well, but they"re usually built around vegetables, and there"s always
a bright red canna or two in there somewhere.
Men love annuals, from bright red geraniums to garish
marigolds to multicolored snapdragons. Annuals are simple. We don"t
need to fuss over them or divide them. We plant them on Memorial Day
every year, fertilize, water, and weed when necessary, and we have
blooms all summer. Those are the kinds of results that men love.
Maybe we identify just a bit with those bright annual flowers. We"re
loud. We"re a little awkward. We like to call attention to ourselves.
We may lack subtlety, but we like to think we"re constant and low-
maintenance.
Men also love exotics — cactus, palms, and orchids. We love
the hunt involved in tracking down rare species. We love the
challenge of growing plants out of their natural element. Most of
all, we love the joy of showing them off.
Men love lawns and hedges — any plant that needs to be
chopped, pruned, and trimmed. We like the feeling of power that comes
from hacking away at a plant to keep it under control.
Men love vegetables. We love the idea of growing our own
food, even if that food is four hundred pounds of zucchini and a
couple of ears of corn. We love the idea that we are providers.
Growing vegetables is worthwhile and manly because we are putting
food on the table for our family, hearkening back to an earlier time
in our country.
The United States began as an agrarian nation, which may
explain why the tradition of hobby gardening for men is not as strong
here as it is in Europe. In our not too distant past, gardening meant
farming, and farming was hard work, a hardscrabble existence. You
didn"t grow plants for relaxation unless you belonged to the
privileged class. Farming has been seen as a form of labor to rise
above, the agrarian life something to escape from. For hundreds of
years American farmers have struggled so that their sons could have a
better life. But today, millions of American men garden. And they do
so for many reasons.
To recapture the past. Many men garden to satisfy an urge to
return to the solid ground of childhood, when life was simple and Dad
had all the answers. In the garden it"s easy to let go of current
problems and fall into the comfort of the past. The warm, wet soil
smells the same as it did thirty years ago. The freshly picked green
beans still taste like the ones picked from Dad"s garden. These guys"
gardens tend to be filled with old-fashioned plants in long straight
rows.
To satisfy the need for order. Gardens are predictable. We
know the grass needs mowing every week. We know the hedge needs
trimming monthly. We know the tomatoes will ripen in ninety days. We
can be certain the Japanese beetles will find the roses. Some men
take comfort in that predictability. Their landscapes are often
marked by neatly trimmed lawns and weed-free flower beds.
To control. Sometimes we feel as if our lives are spinning
out of control. But in the garden we can take control. We can cut the
trees into weird shapes. We can blast the bugs when they dare to
attack our prized plants. We can water and feed to make them grow.
And we can yank out every single weed that dares to invade our plot.
In short, we can become the masters of our back-yard universe.
To provide a place to play. As we grow older, our playgrounds
disappear. Our lives fill up with work and duty, and time for
relaxation diminishes. For many men, the garden is the only place to
putter, play with tools, put together projects. These guys often fill
their gardens with toys, sports courts, or whimsical yard art.
To escape. These days most of us spend our lives surrounded
by steel and asphalt, cut off from nature by sealed windows. The
garden is one of the few places that allows us an escape, where we
can come face to face with nature, even if it"s in the form of
hybridized, domesticated plants. Guys who garden to get back in touch
with nature often choose native plants for their gardens.
To make a mark. Even to this day, the interior of the house
is likely to be a woman"s domain. A man may not have much to say
about the style of the curtains or bedding. But outdoors a guy can
decide what to plant around the deck or how short to trim the
flowering shrubs. He can plant trees, carve beds out of the lawn, or
grow giant pumpkins. In short, he can make the garden his own outdoor
room.
To satisfy a compulsion. In some cases, a man just gets
carried away. He spots a certain plant and it speaks to him. He
discovers a particular gardening style that resonates deep within
him. Before he knows it, his yard is overrun with cactuses or palms
or some other plant that inspires his passion. Often he can"t even
explain why he collects the plant. He only knows he has to.
To create. Some men need to shape the world around them, even
if it"s only a small part of the world. They seize the opportunity to
move dirt, dig holes, change views, and create their own sanctuary.
In the end, there may be as many reasons to garden and as many
gardening styles as there are gardeners. On the pages that follow,
you"ll visit a few outstanding and diverse gardens created and
maintained by men. There
are vegetable gardens, flower gardens, small gardens, grand gardens.
They have little in common, except that each one satisfies a
particular man"s passion. Each is a perfectly realized example of
what that man thinks a garden should be.
Copyright © 2000 by Warren Schultz
I"m tired of being told that gardening is woman"s work. I don"t like
the way my buddies roll their eyes when I tell them I"d rather weed a
border than watch a hockey game between Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, but
there"s no shame in being a gardening man. Farmers? Men. Landscape
architects? Men. Golf-course greenskeepers? Men. Plant breeders? Men.
How did the garden come to be seen as a woman"s domain? It"s not, you
know. There are 36 million male gardeners in America, a strong cadre
of real men with manly gardens. Granted, for many of them the
landscape begins at the sidewalk and ends at the front steps, and in
between there"s nothing but green, green grass. Hauling out the mower
every Saturday is the extent of their "gardening."
But plenty of men are real gardeners, who subscribe to a
masculine style of planting. Is there such a thing as a man"s garden?
You can bet your last six-pack there is. In fact, there are several
archetypal styles of men"s gardens, whose plants or design or
furnishings satisfy certain basic needs of a man"s psyche. Some men"s
gardens are playful, others are competitive. Some are places to fool
with tools. Many have decks and hammocks and built-in barbecue pits.
There might be a bocce court, a putting green, or even a quiet corner
where a man can sit and enjoy a cigar. A man"s garden may have
vegetables, and if it does, it certainly has tomatoes — monster
tomatoes, the biggest on the block. It may have a tall and unruly
flower border in a riot of colors. It probably has some old-
fashioned, unfashionable flowers. It may have cactuses or hedges or a
collection of roses or dahlias.
To me, the idea of testosterone in the garden seems
natural. I grew up surrounded by gardening men. Well, they weren"t
exactly gardening. This was not a leisure-time activity or a hobby;
it was serious business. These guys were farmers — shirt-sleeves-
rolled-up, cigarette-smoking, work-boot-wearing, wisecracking guys:
my dad, my uncle, my cousins. The men worked the fields, the women
kept house and planted little flower gardens beside the back door.
My father was the greatest influence on me. You had to take
only one look at him to be assured that gardening was a manly
activity. Six feet tall, 250 pounds, he was an all-city high school
football player who attended Notre Dame on an athletic scholarship.
In time, though, he gave up his scholarship to return home and help
his mother run the family farm.
A man does his duty. He takes care of his family, he works
the soil. Those were the unspoken rules I learned as a child. And
from the time I was twelve I worked beside my father, growing
vegetables. The business changed with the times, and eventually he
expanded the farm to include a greenhouse and a nursery. To some,
growing pansies might seem less manly than growing corn, but he took
to it easily. You could count on my dad being up at dawn every day
and at work not long afterward. You would find him in the greenhouse,
walking the aisles with a hose in his hand, whistling some dumb show
tune.
Every spring Dad would set aside an evening to plant a flower
garden beside the road. I"m sure he told himself that this was a
marketing ploy. That ornamental garden of annuals would catch the
eyes of passersby and show off our flowering goods to their best
advantage.
It was always the same garden. He would plow a long,
straight, narrow strip, rake it smooth, and mark it out with strings.
He"d start by planting a long straight row of red cannas right down
the center of the bed. On either side he put a row of "Apollo"
marigolds, then a row of red salvia, a row of shorter marigolds, and
finally, a row of red geraniums. It was bright. It was straight. It
was symmetrical and simple. It was red and orange and yellow. People
would drive by and, sure enough, some would stop to ask about those
tall red flowers. Most of those people were men.
That roadside garden attracted attention just as it was
supposed to and completely satisfied my dad. It didn"t matter that
there wasn"t an unusual plant in it, not a single curve or surprise
to be found. And, after spending all day hoeing long straight rows of
peppers or tomatoes, Dad would be in that garden at dusk on his
knees, pulling weeds from between the rows of flowers.
Over the years, my own gardens have had some of my father in
them. Oh, sure, they"ve had raised beds and mulch and perennials as
well, but they"re usually built around vegetables, and there"s always
a bright red canna or two in there somewhere.
Men love annuals, from bright red geraniums to garish
marigolds to multicolored snapdragons. Annuals are simple. We don"t
need to fuss over them or divide them. We plant them on Memorial Day
every year, fertilize, water, and weed when necessary, and we have
blooms all summer. Those are the kinds of results that men love.
Maybe we identify just a bit with those bright annual flowers. We"re
loud. We"re a little awkward. We like to call attention to ourselves.
We may lack subtlety, but we like to think we"re constant and low-
maintenance.
Men also love exotics — cactus, palms, and orchids. We love
the hunt involved in tracking down rare species. We love the
challenge of growing plants out of their natural element. Most of
all, we love the joy of showing them off.
Men love lawns and hedges — any plant that needs to be
chopped, pruned, and trimmed. We like the feeling of power that comes
from hacking away at a plant to keep it under control.
Men love vegetables. We love the idea of growing our own
food, even if that food is four hundred pounds of zucchini and a
couple of ears of corn. We love the idea that we are providers.
Growing vegetables is worthwhile and manly because we are putting
food on the table for our family, hearkening back to an earlier time
in our country.
The United States began as an agrarian nation, which may
explain why the tradition of hobby gardening for men is not as strong
here as it is in Europe. In our not too distant past, gardening meant
farming, and farming was hard work, a hardscrabble existence. You
didn"t grow plants for relaxation unless you belonged to the
privileged class. Farming has been seen as a form of labor to rise
above, the agrarian life something to escape from. For hundreds of
years American farmers have struggled so that their sons could have a
better life. But today, millions of American men garden. And they do
so for many reasons.
To recapture the past. Many men garden to satisfy an urge to
return to the solid ground of childhood, when life was simple and Dad
had all the answers. In the garden it"s easy to let go of current
problems and fall into the comfort of the past. The warm, wet soil
smells the same as it did thirty years ago. The freshly picked green
beans still taste like the ones picked from Dad"s garden. These guys"
gardens tend to be filled with old-fashioned plants in long straight
rows.
To satisfy the need for order. Gardens are predictable. We
know the grass needs mowing every week. We know the hedge needs
trimming monthly. We know the tomatoes will ripen in ninety days. We
can be certain the Japanese beetles will find the roses. Some men
take comfort in that predictability. Their landscapes are often
marked by neatly trimmed lawns and weed-free flower beds.
To control. Sometimes we feel as if our lives are spinning
out of control. But in the garden we can take control. We can cut the
trees into weird shapes. We can blast the bugs when they dare to
attack our prized plants. We can water and feed to make them grow.
And we can yank out every single weed that dares to invade our plot.
In short, we can become the masters of our back-yard universe.
To provide a place to play. As we grow older, our playgrounds
disappear. Our lives fill up with work and duty, and time for
relaxation diminishes. For many men, the garden is the only place to
putter, play with tools, put together projects. These guys often fill
their gardens with toys, sports courts, or whimsical yard art.
To escape. These days most of us spend our lives surrounded
by steel and asphalt, cut off from nature by sealed windows. The
garden is one of the few places that allows us an escape, where we
can come face to face with nature, even if it"s in the form of
hybridized, domesticated plants. Guys who garden to get back in touch
with nature often choose native plants for their gardens.
To make a mark. Even to this day, the interior of the house
is likely to be a woman"s domain. A man may not have much to say
about the style of the curtains or bedding. But outdoors a guy can
decide what to plant around the deck or how short to trim the
flowering shrubs. He can plant trees, carve beds out of the lawn, or
grow giant pumpkins. In short, he can make the garden his own outdoor
room.
To satisfy a compulsion. In some cases, a man just gets
carried away. He spots a certain plant and it speaks to him. He
discovers a particular gardening style that resonates deep within
him. Before he knows it, his yard is overrun with cactuses or palms
or some other plant that inspires his passion. Often he can"t even
explain why he collects the plant. He only knows he has to.
To create. Some men need to shape the world around them, even
if it"s only a small part of the world. They seize the opportunity to
move dirt, dig holes, change views, and create their own sanctuary.
In the end, there may be as many reasons to garden and as many
gardening styles as there are gardeners. On the pages that follow,
you"ll visit a few outstanding and diverse gardens created and
maintained by men. There
are vegetable gardens, flower gardens, small gardens, grand gardens.
They have little in common, except that each one satisfies a
particular man"s passion. Each is a perfectly realized example of
what that man thinks a garden should be.
Copyright © 2000 by Warren Schultz
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHoughton Mifflin
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0618003924
- ISBN 13 9780618003921
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages160
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