I own and have read all Allen Lacy's books and recommend them to anyone who wants to be better acquainted with the how-to aspect of gardening. I also recommend Lacy's books to those who seek a deeper experience with the natural world. Allen taught philosopy for years, and although his books mainly focus on horticulture, he includes relevant historical antecedents and existential angles in his writing that may help one better understand why humans imagine paradise is a garden.

I read THE INVITING GARDEN when it was first published a few years ago, but it is as timely and relevant today as it was when it was first published--why it has been reprinted. Compared with his other books, TIG contains many more photographs and much less text, but the photographs are some of the most beautiful I have seen in a garden book, and I am a garden book junkie.

Because many of his garden shots include children, the book is a real pick-me-up. Lacy shows his own granddaughter on his deck in New Jersey, a little boy poking branches into the soft bottom of a creek bed, and children here and there in various gardens in the U.S. and Europe. I especially like the shot of a very little girl with her arms around a huge tree at Versailles. With her feet placed on a protuding root, she is poised as if she is about to climb the tree, which is at least five feet across at the base. The imagination of children is a wonderous thing, but it also opens up my imagination and helps me appreciate why trees figure so prominently in human mythology and religion. Lacy has written elsewhere that he thinks trees are sentient beings and I do to.

Lacy has organized his book according to the five human senses. Chapters cover the garden and the sense of sight (there are many beautiful shots of gardens around the country and in England and France); smell (shots show flower examples from Roses to Nicotiana (flowering tobacco), shrubs like Winter Jasmine, and herbs (one photo shows a box garden in Charleston with Rosemary accents); touch; taste; and hearing.

Hearing?? What can one hear in the garden? Well to start with of course one can hear bird calls, buzzing bees, and wind chimes. But one can also hear the breeze blowing through high trees and grasses, as well as the burbling of water in a creek or manmade pond. Photos from a garden in California show a clay face mask lying underwater on the floor of a pond. Moss grows over the mask and bubbles of air pass through mouth to make lovely gurgling sounds (according to Lacy). In another shot, a clay mask is positioned among grasses so that the wind passing through emits a whispering sound.

Whether you garden or not, this wonderful book can help you push away the blues.

I just returned from my first foray at my local garden center. The scents of plants in full fragrant bloom almost overwhelmed me. Indeed there is the moment before becoming captured by the garden and the everlasting moments thereafter. I love Lacy's Gardener's Eye and this most recent book. Both come to me after that first flicker of what a garden can be.-Linda Fry Kenzle, author of Gathering

The Inviting Garden did just what it set out to do: invite me to explore all my senses as a gardener. It isn't a picture book of perfect gardens, although the photographs are very nice. Rather, Mr. Lacy uses the same techniques to construct his book as he might use to design his garden. He balances his own personal stories with bits of plant history and botanical reference and every word begs to be read. This is a delightful book and deserves to be on the bedside table of every dedicated or aspiring gardener.

Several years ago, my company sponsored an series of exhibits on American Impressionist artists. Later, I took a course in American Impressionism. I have gone out of my way to view the works of Childe Hassam, William Merrit Chase, and other impressionists, and like their work very much.

I bought this little book because I am fond of the paintings Hassam created based on Celia Thaxter's gardens at Appledore. The book is a replica (?) of one printed in the 19th century. The facsimilies of the paintings are not very accurate, however. If you want the book for it's history, fine. If you want a book containing modern photographs of the works, this book will disappoint you.

In the closing years of the Nineteenth Century, Celia Thaxter (1835-94) lived on Appledore, one of the Isles of Shoal off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Contemplating the lovely garden that she had created there, she decided to write down her thoughts and share them with us. Taking the form of a yearlong calendar, she walks us through her experiences in her garden, as she tends it and protects it throughout the year.

This is an absolutely wonderful book! Celia obviously loved her garden and all of the green growing things around her. This love shines through the narrative, such as when she wrote, "He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul."

As I said before, this book covers a year in the life of Celia's garden, but is not written as a simple chronology. Instead, the book covers Celia's work and her thoughts, moving from advice to poetry with a wonderful casualness. The boxed edition of this book is handsomely decorated, with Childe Hassam's illustrations setting just the perfect tone for it. This book makes a wonderful gift for the gardener in your life, and I can't recommend it enough!

Reading An Island Garden by Celia Thaxter has become a yearly ritual for me, to inspire and prepare me for yet another hopeful year of gardening. Ms. Thaxter's intimacy with the pleasures and plagues of each variety of perennial, biennial or annual she grows (mostly of the old-fashioned varieties) is astounding. This book has become a guidebook for me in replicating an old-fashioned "grandmother's" garden. Her poetic descriptions of her "flower children" and fervor in protecting them is both endearing and amusing. At times, it seems as though she is joking when she describes the lengths at which she'll go to ward of the pests which threaten her Island garden. Reading an Island Garden will bring you back to the gentle times of the Victorian Era and is especially perfect seaside or verandah reading. This is definitely for people who love their gardens and consider them as human as a member of the family!

I don't live in NC anymore, but when I did, Miss Lawrence wrote a garden column and was known all over the state by garden club members like my mom who met her at least once. We lived in Guilford County which is part of the Greensboro-High Point MSA these days and she lived in Raleigh to the east, and then Charlotte to the south. Anyway, she understood what would and wouldn't work in the Zone 7 garden. (I still live in Zone 7 -- in Virginia).

Miss Lawrence was the first writer to educate gardeners in our circles about the differences in growing regions. She corresponded with folks in other places and shared information about what was happening in their gardens with her column readers. She also informed readers about information she gleaned from the Market Bulletins. These bulletins were posted by folks who had something to offer or wanted something --gardenwise. The only expense involved much of the time was postage.

This book is a fascinating compilation of articles Miss Lawrence wrote about the Market Bulletins. The sections are filled with newsy notes and humor, and makes one feel as if she is hanging over the garden gate getting the latest news from a neighbor up the road. Great bed time reading.

In "A Rock Garden in the South" Ms. Lawrence returns to her greatest strength. I don't think anyone has ever understood rock gardens as well as Ms. Lawrence. And if you're concerned about water scarcity and drought, knowing about rock gardening is quite pragmatic.

Although the book was written some time ago, and released after her death, it was edited by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy, so the contents are solid and up to date. The contents read somewhat like an annotated plant list, but Ms. Lawrence writes beautiful prose so it's not at all dry and boring. In fact, her writing is useful and entertaining.

Ms. Lawrence believed you could make a rock garden almost anywhere--even if you didn't have rocks. The key is to plant things that will grow in your area. Most of her writing in this book is useful for the middle South -- Zones 6-8 -- but if you look at a garden book showing the USDA growing zones you'll see they extend clear across the country.

The book contains a great deal of information about plants and their likes and dislikes. There are no photographs, this is solid text, however, if I want to know what something looks like I find a catalog from Wayside Gardens and poke around. Some of the more esoteric items may not be pictured in any garden catalog with photos, but sometimes it's worth the gamble to just try something on faith.

Several pages showing plant requirements (will it work in dry shade?), as well as sources for seed exchanges and nurseries are located in the back of the book.

A YEAR IN OUR GARDENS by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy is a chatty exchange of letters and faxes between two old friends, both of whom have many years of gardening experience to their credit. Ms Goodwin ran Montrose Nursery for many years and is very informed and informing about plants -- native, cultivated, imported, and home-grown.

Dr. Lacy has written many books about gardening and garden design -- centered on his garden in New Jersey and other gardens futher afield. My personal favorite of Lacy's books is THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN, although THE INVITING GARDEN is probably his best selling book. I wouldn't recommend A YEAR IN OUR GARDENS to the novice gardener since it has no colorful photographs and a plethora of Latin named flowers and plants. Even the intermediate gardener searching for tips might find THE INVITING GARDEN a better read.

If you've been gardening awhile and like to read about green adventures from the comfort of your easy chair or need a good book for bedtime reading, you'll probably enjoy A YEAR IN OUR GARDENS. To me it's something of a cross between the books by Elizabeth Lawrence and Beverly Nichols. In fact, if Lawrence and Nichols had written to each other their conversations might have been a bit like the conversations of Goodwin and Lacey.

Goodwin and Lacey both had an affilitation with Duke University as did Elizabeth Lawrence though neither Goodwin nor Lacey is a botonist like Lawrence. Lacey wrote garden columns for the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and until recently taught philosopy and horitculture at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey where he lives and gardens. Lawrence's father was Lacey's professor of English at Duke University, and Lawrence lives and gardens near Hillsborough NC.

Both Goodwin and Lacey have gardens in growing zone 7. As they relate their experiences over the course of the year, it becomes obvious this counts for little. Lacey lives near the Atlantic, has sandy soil he must amend with humus, and experiences milder summers and colder winters. Goodwin lives in the NC piedmont, gardens in clay, and has hot-hot summers. Both have green houses that allow them to cultivate a variety of plants more suited to tropical climates. Lacey tends to grow many plants in pots on a large extended deck, while Goodwin has a much larger property with room for numerous shubs and trees and a woodland garden. Lacey says he prefers summer months for gardening, and Goodwin says she prefers anything but summer.

In addition to the exchange about plants, garden design and the various wildlife sightings, both correspondents share the ups and downs of daily living. Over the course of a year, Lacey undergoes major surgery and Goodwin's husband has eye surgery and her father dies. Both Godwin and Lacey travel to various locations to give lectures and undergo interviews on television and radio. Martha Stewart drops by for a fifteen minute tour of Montrose, and Lacey goes to Disneyland.

All in all this book is mildly entertaining, and a peek into the lives of two relatively well educated gardeners.

I was thrilled to get this book - autumn and winter are my favorite gardening seasons. I was hoping this would be a factual book, pumped with good horticultural information.

What I got was a sappy book full of romanticized gobbledygoock and poetic prose. If I wanted to read a fictional romance novel I would have done so.

If you want a "just the facts" let's get down to gardening type book, this is not for you. If you want a dreamy armchair book to read as you sip chablis in front of a crackling fire, whilst the snowflakes dance upon your frigid windowsill, then this may be for you.

This is a wonderful book, especially for the gardener who has dreaded the end of the glorious growing season. After years of consoling myself with platitudes (after all, fall is just the harbinger of a new growing season...) Allen Lacy enabled me to see past the arbitrary definition of northern gardening as something confined to spring and summer.

It's safe to say that since I first read The Garden in Autumn in hardcover seven years ago that my garden and gardening have been totally revolutionized. No longer is the first frost (mid-September here in western Maine) a death sentence in my borders...in fact, I have multitudinous plants which now don't even begin to bloom until well after that time; asters, hardy chrysanthemums, hardy cyclamen, fall crocus. Some years I even have the last fall crocus blooming gamely, an iridescent eery blue, through the first snow fall.

Anyone who gardens in the northern tier of the United States and Canada, especially, will do well to allow Lacy to inspire him or her with the great beauty and potential of this "season of flame and fire and incandescence". The specifics are accurate and informed, the photography gorgeous, and Mr. Lacy's prose, as always, is a delight