Literature for gardeners

I read a charming little book on my Kindle by Elizabeth von Arnim, The Solitary Summer. It is in the same vein as another book by her, Elizabeth and her German Garden. Both deal primarily with her love for her garden in her home in Germany. In both, she never refers to her husband by name but only as "The Man of Wrath," and she likewise refers to her three daughters as "the babies," and individually as "the April baby," "the May baby," and "the June baby."

Here are the passages I highlighted in The Solitary Summer:

Every now and then I leave the book on the seat and go and have a refreshing potter among my flower beds, from which I return greatly benefited, and with a more just conception of what, in this world, is worth bothering about, and what is not.

What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden.


All I want is to read quietly the books that I at present prefer.


I never pay bills or write letters on fine summer days. Not for any one will I forego all that such a day rightly spent out of doors might give me; so that a wet day at intervals is almost as necessary for me as for my garden.

It is delightful and instructive to potter among one's plants, but it is imperative for body and soul that the pottering should cease for a few months, and that we should be made to realise that grim other side of life. A long hard winter lived through from beginning to end without shirking is one of the most salutary experiences in the world.


Nobody, except the ultra-original, denies the absolute supremacy of the rose. She is safe on her throne, and the only question to decide is which are the flowers that one loves next best.*

*Miss Von Arnim's second-favorite flower is the sweet pea. Mine is the pansy.

I would suspect that at this point in history, Elizabeth von Arnim's best known work is The Enchanted April, which has also been adapted into a lovely movie. I heartily recommend them all.