The Curious Gardener - Softcover

Dahl, Jürgen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604692022 ISBN 13: 9781604692020

Publisher: Timber Press, 2010

Synopsis

Now for the first time in English, one of the world's best-loved garden writers explores the connections between the life of the garden and the life of the mind. In this omnibus volume that ranges from discussing why gardeners should grow bad-smelling plants to how readers should eat their flowers, Jürgen Dahl identifies curiosity and patience as the gardener's chief virtues. What matters most to Dahl is that a garden is not a sterile copy of a picture in a book, or a beautiful "triumph" that lacks all experimentation and wonder. In Jürgen Dahl's garden, things do not "work," but instead they happen—or maybe they do not. Many things that please, surprise, or disappoint a gardener do so because the garden's living creatures can only rarely be tricked into obeying the gardener's will; in their own quiet but unyielding way, they follow their own laws. Jürgen Dahl's stories are wise and cheerful, and full of opinions and premonitions, all told with the insatiable curiosity of the true explorer.

About this title

From the Publisher:

We hereby invite you to be infected with the curiosity of the gardener, to follow him on less-well-trodden paths, to ponder with him, to experiment, to enjoy, to worry, and to rejoice with him.

With more clarity and depth than most people, Jürgen Dahl viewed gardens as mirror images of the world at large. His insights and interpretations often are like parables, leading his reader into a universe governed by continuous change and infinite variation. This universe obeys its own laws, which we, in turn, are obliged to respect.

The present volume contains the last three gardening books that Jürgen Dahl wrote: The Curious Gardener (1998), The Stinking Garden (1997), and How to Eat a Lily (1995). Some of the text originated in his beloved weekly gardening column; some of it has been shortened and adapted, and botanical names have been added, as have photographs, which previously appeared only in The Stinking Garden.

Jürgen Dahl was able to participate in the editorial preparation of this book for only a short time. He died on 6 October 2001. Mrs. Hella Dahl has been very helpful in continuing his work as he would have wished, particularly in selecting pictures and picture captions to be included in this book. For this we are very grateful to her.

About the Author:

Jürgen Dahl (1929–2001) was a bookseller until he sold his bookshop to work as a writer and gardener. Until his death, he worked for WDR, a large German broadcasting station, and Die Zeit, a major weekly magazine. He was the author of nearly a dozen books. For many years, he also edited Crossroads, an annual journal of critical thinking. He received the prestigious Deutscher Journalistenpreis in 1965, the Bruno H. Schubert Environment Prize in 1987 for his work to protect the environment, and the German Horticultural Association's prize for nature education in 1998. Dahl and his wife, Hella, lived on his farm, Lindenhof near Kleve, on the lower Rhine.

About this edition

• Publisher: Timber Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1604692022
• ISBN 13: 9781604692020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264