A Sense of Humus - Softcover

Diana Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0863277144 ISBN 13: 9780863277146

Publisher: Wolfhound Press (IE), 1999

Synopsis

The trouble with most gardening books is that they are always commanding you to do something: prune, plant, how, sow, week ... they forget that there are times when gardeners simply need to throw themselves into the depths of a favorite chair and read something entertaining about their passion – to smile at the foibles, fancies and fads of other gardeners, to be amused by their eccentricities, to share their tears and triumphs ... and not to be overwhelmed with advice.

Garden literature contains some of the most entertaining writing in the world and, like gardening itself, is an infinite source of comedy and semi-tragedy, furnishing scope for the full range of human emotions. The collection of wit and wisdom offered in this volume is a somewhat kaleidoscopic affair; but no matter how the pieces are shaken or dipped into, the vibrant pattern that emerges reflects the humor, the color and vitality of the garden and its maker. We discover, in fact, that gardeners have a finely developed penchant for laughing at themselves and are possessed of a magnificent sense of humus.

This pot pourri of evergreen reading is enlivened by Diana Anthony’s own sharp wit and acute observations. It will entrance and entertain the perennial gardener in us all.

About this title

About the Author:

Diana Anthony was born in North Wales. After graduating from Bristol University with a degree in English literature and language and a diploma in education, she pursued a career as a teacher. In 1965 she met her army officer husband and subsequently combined motherhood, teaching and traveling the world with the British Army. Always a thwarted gardener, Diana Anthony made gardens across the face of the globe, leaving them every two years as the family moved on. On her husband’s retirement in 1987, the family emigrated to New Zealand.

A humorous account of the creation of her large garden (‘the last, and best loved’) wrestled from gorse and raw clay north of Whangarei has been described in her first book Seven Summers at Valley Homestead, which was published in 1994. That garden, which is open to the public, has been listed among the top ten New Zealand gardens.

Diana Anthony is features writer and correspondent for the New Zealand Gardener and she writes regularly for North and South magazine and other national publications and newspapers. Her other books include A Book of Gardens (1995) and The Potager: The Ornamental Kitchen Garden (1997).

About this edition

• Publisher: Wolfhound Press (IE)
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0863277144
• ISBN 13: 9780863277146
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256