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From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden
Amy Stewart had a simple dream. She wanted a garden.
When she and her husband finished graduate school, they headed west to Santa Cruz, California. With little money in their pockets, they found a modest seaside cottage with a small backyard. It wasn’t much—a twelve-hundred-square-foot patch of land with a couple of fruit trees and a lot of dirt—but it was a good place to start.
From the Ground Up is Stewart's chronicle of the seedlings and weeds, cats and compost, worms and watering that transform a tiny plot of earth into a glorious garden. From planting the seeds her great-grandmother sends to battling snails, gophers, and aphids, Stewart takes us on a tour of her coastal garden and shares the lessons she's learned the hard way. In the process, she brings her California beach town to life—complete with harbor seals, monarch butterfly migrations, and an old-fashioned, seaside amusement park just down the street.
Delighting in triumphs and confessing to a multitude of gardening sins, Stewart dishes the dirt for both the novice and experienced gardener. With helpful tips in each chapter, From the Ground Up tells the story of a young woman’s determination to create a garden in which the plants struggle to live up to the gardener’s vision
When she and her husband finished graduate school, they headed west to Santa Cruz, California. With little money in their pockets, they found a modest seaside cottage with a small backyard. It wasn’t much—a twelve-hundred-square-foot patch of land with a couple of fruit trees and a lot of dirt—but it was a good place to start.
From the Ground Up is Stewart's chronicle of the seedlings and weeds, cats and compost, worms and watering that transform a tiny plot of earth into a glorious garden. From planting the seeds her great-grandmother sends to battling snails, gophers, and aphids, Stewart takes us on a tour of her coastal garden and shares the lessons she's learned the hard way. In the process, she brings her California beach town to life—complete with harbor seals, monarch butterfly migrations, and an old-fashioned, seaside amusement park just down the street.
Delighting in triumphs and confessing to a multitude of gardening sins, Stewart dishes the dirt for both the novice and experienced gardener. With helpful tips in each chapter, From the Ground Up tells the story of a young woman’s determination to create a garden in which the plants struggle to live up to the gardener’s vision
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 19, 2000
About the author
Amy Stewart
24 books2,493 followersAmy Stewart is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including Girl Waits with Gun, Lady Cop Makes Trouble, The Drunken Botanist, and Wicked Plants.
She lives in Portland with her husband Scott Brown, a rare book dealer.
Stay connected with Amy via her newsletter , where she offers cocktail recipes, creative inspiration, book recommendations, and more!
She lives in Portland with her husband Scott Brown, a rare book dealer.
Stay connected with Amy via her newsletter , where she offers cocktail recipes, creative inspiration, book recommendations, and more!
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
December 28, 2021
Though I'd liked other books by the author, I'd hesitated on this one for a while since I'm not a gardener. As I came away feeling it exceeded my expectations in terms of being able to get into the story, this may have been the right time.
newlywed in her first (rented) home, she makes regular mistakes, along the lines of "I don't need to shell out for no stinkin' specialty compost!" to her battles with moles late in the book. Of course, we're laughing along with her, not at her. She does go into a bit of depth on tomatoes, which I dislike raw, but when she goes into locals forcing leftover zucchini on each other I was excited at the thought of all that tasty bread.
It's a perfectly fine, definitely recommended, book. However, I'm not comfortable with five stars over the deep-dive specialty focuses at the end of each chapter, which made the book seem longer than it was; I largely skimmed through them.
Hearing tourists screaming on the nearby rollercoaster nonstop for months on end would've been a definite deal-breaker for me in terms of location.
newlywed in her first (rented) home, she makes regular mistakes, along the lines of "I don't need to shell out for no stinkin' specialty compost!" to her battles with moles late in the book. Of course, we're laughing along with her, not at her. She does go into a bit of depth on tomatoes, which I dislike raw, but when she goes into locals forcing leftover zucchini on each other I was excited at the thought of all that tasty bread.
It's a perfectly fine, definitely recommended, book. However, I'm not comfortable with five stars over the deep-dive specialty focuses at the end of each chapter, which made the book seem longer than it was; I largely skimmed through them.
Hearing tourists screaming on the nearby rollercoaster nonstop for months on end would've been a definite deal-breaker for me in terms of location.
January 13, 2015
Really enjoyed this little garden memoir. Brought back a lot of memories of all my first gardening attempts in different parts of the country (and world), only to learn that all those little tries were simply a warm-up for my own garden: the one I made (and continue to build on) in - what I consider - the first house I truly owned (and that truly owned me).
Ms. Stewart has a wonderful sense of humor, and a terrific eye for describing the absurdities that working in the sun and rain and soil brings to every true gardener (new, or not). But she just barely touches on the painful, heart-wrench that will come when I have to leave this (always) work-in-progress to someone else; someone else who will have to learn where the one special yellow columbine comes up (and has come up for the past almost 17 years); the one that's survived being pulled and broken off at the crown by various unseeing and uncaring so-called professional gardeners. (And there are so many more of those survivors in my garden.)
Leaving friends all over the United States (and the world) has been hard beyond belief over the past fifty-some years. But abandoning my garden - handing it over to someone who will have no idea what that rose I planted next to the garage door means to me, and meant to my mother... that's almost unfathomable pain.
I also know that very soon I'll need to begin my letter to the new caretaker of my 100 year old house and garden and hope that they'll care about it enough to see it through all four seasons before making any drastic changes. I pray they'll love the centurion cherry tree that's part of this garden's history as much as I do, crazy big roots and all.
So, thanks Amy for this terrific little book. I wish it had been longer. I grew up in Monterey and went to UCSC for a while so felt right at home in her garden.
Ms. Stewart has a wonderful sense of humor, and a terrific eye for describing the absurdities that working in the sun and rain and soil brings to every true gardener (new, or not). But she just barely touches on the painful, heart-wrench that will come when I have to leave this (always) work-in-progress to someone else; someone else who will have to learn where the one special yellow columbine comes up (and has come up for the past almost 17 years); the one that's survived being pulled and broken off at the crown by various unseeing and uncaring so-called professional gardeners. (And there are so many more of those survivors in my garden.)
Leaving friends all over the United States (and the world) has been hard beyond belief over the past fifty-some years. But abandoning my garden - handing it over to someone who will have no idea what that rose I planted next to the garage door means to me, and meant to my mother... that's almost unfathomable pain.
I also know that very soon I'll need to begin my letter to the new caretaker of my 100 year old house and garden and hope that they'll care about it enough to see it through all four seasons before making any drastic changes. I pray they'll love the centurion cherry tree that's part of this garden's history as much as I do, crazy big roots and all.
So, thanks Amy for this terrific little book. I wish it had been longer. I grew up in Monterey and went to UCSC for a while so felt right at home in her garden.
October 8, 2020
rating: 3.5
Why has it taken me so long to pick up a book about someone's experiences in a garden? This is the second one that I've read this year, and they've both been delightful. Early in the book, when Ms Stewart describes the location of her garden, she writes that her house (and therefore some of her garden) appears on many postcards. I intend to watch for cards that show her house when I attend the upcoming postcard show.
One part of her account that bothers me is her take on cats. If she truly likes the natural world, why does she let her cats run free? Yes, cats are predators, but they are not natural. They fit the definition of a weed. They survive in a wide variety of habitats and they wreck havoc on the native species. I could continue this into a full-fledged rant, but I will refrain.
I can understand Stewart's comment about the Butchart Gardens:
"I longed for the diversity and disarray of the wild. I didn't feel any closer to nature in this showboat garden; instead, I felt like I had spent my afternoon strolling through a very sterile, well-landscaped theme park or shopping mall."
Maybe that's why I enjoyed reading about her experiences. Her goal in gardens is somewhat like mine -- diverse and natural.
Why has it taken me so long to pick up a book about someone's experiences in a garden? This is the second one that I've read this year, and they've both been delightful. Early in the book, when Ms Stewart describes the location of her garden, she writes that her house (and therefore some of her garden) appears on many postcards. I intend to watch for cards that show her house when I attend the upcoming postcard show.
One part of her account that bothers me is her take on cats. If she truly likes the natural world, why does she let her cats run free? Yes, cats are predators, but they are not natural. They fit the definition of a weed. They survive in a wide variety of habitats and they wreck havoc on the native species. I could continue this into a full-fledged rant, but I will refrain.
I can understand Stewart's comment about the Butchart Gardens:
"I longed for the diversity and disarray of the wild. I didn't feel any closer to nature in this showboat garden; instead, I felt like I had spent my afternoon strolling through a very sterile, well-landscaped theme park or shopping mall."
Maybe that's why I enjoyed reading about her experiences. Her goal in gardens is somewhat like mine -- diverse and natural.
February 7, 2017
I enjoyed this amusing tale of a first garden, while Punxsutawney Phil today is predicting 6 more weeks of winter it was nice to read of growing vegetables and flowers and herbs even if it was in California!
September 23, 2019
It’s been a long time since I read a book of gardening essays, and I’m so happy that this year’s reading challenge required me to read “a book about a hobby.” What hobby could be better than gardening? My own garden is a disaster area because I have not had time to care for it in years, but I still like to read about other’s gardens!
Amy Stewart always charms me.
I mean, come on, don’t you want to read this: (Amy is panicked because an out of town friend will be visiting, and she wants her garden to look great. Full disclosure: I like petunias and pansies are my favorite flower. But I completely understand Stewart’s POV, I’ve been there too.)
I was a little stunned when Stewart casually mentioned that she considered poisoning the gophers who invaded her vegetable garden, and in the very next paragraph talks about her cat hunting a gopher and wonders how much of the gopher will be eaten by her cat. (She never resorts to poison.) Do not ever poison animals if you think there is even the slightest chance your pets will eat the animals!!! You will end up fatally poisoning your pet.
Amy Stewart always charms me.
I mean, come on, don’t you want to read this: (Amy is panicked because an out of town friend will be visiting, and she wants her garden to look great. Full disclosure: I like petunias and pansies are my favorite flower. But I completely understand Stewart’s POV, I’ve been there too.)
But this time, I found myself helplessly drawn toward the pansies and the marigolds—the bright reliable bloomers, the summer annuals that keep every garden center across the country in business, two dollars at a time. I had never wanted them before, but now I had the problem that they were designed to solve. I had empty space, a need for blooming color, and they would step in and do the job on a moment’s notice. I looked around to make sure I was safely out of sight of the organic vegetable gardeners in the back. I didn’t want them to see me loading my cart with ordinary old pansies or, worse, petunias.
Because of course, that’s exactly what I did. In fact, I went a little crazy, filling up my cart with colorful annuals. They were like gardening candy, hard to resist once I got started. I bought impatiens and violas, blooming ground covers, and—I am most ashamed of this—a dozen or so flowering, one-gallon annuals like pincushion flowers and cosmos. Never in a million years did I think I’d stoop low enough to pay five dollars for something that grows so easily from seed, something that is practically a weed. I felt a little embarrassed about it. But they looked good, maybe too good for something that was supposed to have grown up in my garden. I worried that I’d given in to the gardening equivalent of a padded bra—not really mine, but for just a few dollars, I could claim they were, and no one would know the difference.
When I got home, I put my plants in the ground quickly, scarcely bothering to prepare the earth or even think about where they might grow best. I seemed to be reverting to my old habits. I needed results, and I needed them quickly. I wasn’t very concerned about the long term. They could all shrivel up and die, as far as I cared, right after Annette’s visit was over. They were stand-ins, temporary workers. They’d do their job and then I’d let them go.
The annuals took their place among my other plants, which all looked a little drab in comparison. I went inside and rooted around until I found an old bottle of that awful synthetic blue fertilizer I used to feed my houseplants. Would the garden mind if I gave it a few shots of nonorganic food? I didn’t think it could hurt anything, but I felt a little guilty as I sprayed it on, wondering if I was a bad mother for feeding my garden junk food after I had worked so hard to raise it on a healthy, well-balanced diet.
The garden didn’t look any better. The pansies and the petunias looked stupid, false, out of place. They made my tender young garden look like it was wearing too much makeup. I wasn’t at all sure that my hasty improvements had done any good at all. What was I thinking, planting ridiculous little pansies and sprinkling chemical fertilizers on them? Had I lost my mind?
I was a little stunned when Stewart casually mentioned that she considered poisoning the gophers who invaded her vegetable garden, and in the very next paragraph talks about her cat hunting a gopher and wonders how much of the gopher will be eaten by her cat. (She never resorts to poison.) Do not ever poison animals if you think there is even the slightest chance your pets will eat the animals!!! You will end up fatally poisoning your pet.
March 7, 2022
Great tips (except the one on landscape cloth.) I've had this book forever but just now read it because of the Spring weather. Alternated between gardening and reading.
January 8, 2015
I have gradually been watching my gardening bookshelves make way for more and more compact, attractively bound, beautifully designed and charming books by Amy Stewart: how convenient that she writes about poisonous and "Wicked" plants when our culture is obsessed with Gothic gruesomeness and horror... Suddenly everyone is aware of the plight of honeybees and Monarchs, and PRESTO! Out comes "Wicked Bugs" with its wonderfully whimsical red cover and Victorian ornamentation to tell the other side of the story. Drinking has finally recovered from the stigma of Dean Martin-style excess, and Amy responds with "The Drunken Botanist" reminding us that Chlorophyll once again is the key to human happiness. Like a surfer, she rides the waves of timeliness--and why not? I sought out "Flower Confidential"--a wonderful documentation of the enormous economic shifts that have taken place with globalization and our little flower world--a dazzling piece of journalism. So I confess I'm hooked: I had to finally get around to her first book (A sort of "Portrait of the Artist as a young gardener"--a very modest, homey tome that fits comfortably in one's hand, and which tells the story (one we all have lived) of how she became obsessed with gardening. She reveals more than a little about her past, her truly wonderful partnership with her husband, and her cultural and personal values. It would be so easy to take pot-shots at the two or three howlers I've found in each book (she's not a Ph.D. botanist after all). It would not be hard to dismiss these slight volumes, with are timed with such seeming ephemeral relevance. Except. Except that the prose flows ever so musically. The image that you eventually gain of this delicate California-Texas Valkyrie is so indelible that I give up! I admit that these books (so reasonably priced, so attractively packaged, so perfect to perch next to the bed in your guest room, or other more personal rooms) are perhaps nothing more and nothing less than our contemporary manifestation of the White Goddess. Amy is our contemporary voice of Mother Nature herself, in a wonderfully hip, up to date persona. Buy all her books, read and re-read them. She's a modern classic! (Says he, bending on his knee in obeisance).
April 20, 2023
What a delightful little book. It is not new - published in 2001 - but new to me via a nonfiction gardeners' bookclub recommendation. I can relate to the author's Texas roots with aunts named D'Anna and graduate school in Austin, but less so to the life and clime of Santa Cruz, California where the author tills her first garden. The chapters are brief (probably columns in gardening publications?) and the titles say it all: Weeds, Cats, Dirt, Seed, Surplus Produce ... etc. The Prologue sets the book up with the one liner: "A garden is a human creation." The chapter entitled Bugs has a great line: "It was a civil war and I was a third party, large and powerful but unfamiliar with the history and customs of the natives." It also has endearing references to a 20 year old cat and when she accidentally wiped out a nursery of ladybugs "for weeks afterward, I apologized to every ladybug I saw."
I recommend to gardeners who take a break from gardening to be inspired by a book on gardening ...
I recommend to gardeners who take a break from gardening to be inspired by a book on gardening ...
May 6, 2019
A few charming/helpful stories, but I found this book to be mostly irritating.
August 13, 2022
Charming.
The author is the same Amy Stewart who went on to write more nonfiction books (The Drunken Botanist and Flower Confidential, among others) and the Kopp Sisters fiction series.
The author is the same Amy Stewart who went on to write more nonfiction books (The Drunken Botanist and Flower Confidential, among others) and the Kopp Sisters fiction series.
July 18, 2018
Marvelous book about her first garden.
November 21, 2020
I really enjoyed this book actually— I thought it was going to be sappy, but the writer was petty and silly and very relatable. It wasn’t too long-winded or redundant either. All in all, a great book to reignite the garden flame after a long hot summer.
March 6, 2018
A sweet and simple garden memoir. I enjoyed this but do think it's best suited for beginning gardeners.
November 18, 2014
It's a sweet kind of book that I read for relaxation. There were plenty of moments that made me smile, and others where I would nod my head in a knowing sort of way. Yes, I've agonized over houseplants, too. Yes, yes, I know the pains of keeping my cat away from baby birds. Oh, those tourists, you poor dear.
There wasn't really anything… truly uique in the way of gardening advice. I will say that Stewart's other works like Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities and The Drunken Botanist are far more compelling. They have an edge to them, intrigue, history. Really, I'm not surprised that many people are saying they could have written something like this-- It seems like a book you'd write to get your feet wet before delving into a larger project. This is about a human experience, their errors, their triumphs. First gardens are always storytellers.
Something that did prevent me from relating to a lot of this, though, was Stewart's comfortable means. She can go out to the nursery every weekend and bring back hauls of annuals, seeds, bags of mulch and manure. I am not nearly so fortunate. My trips to the garden center need to be carefully planned out with a tight budget. I start mostly from seed. Dirt is precious, as are the plants we do end up buying. Weekend stints of impulse buying? I wish! But I can't blame her for this any more than I can blame her for living out on the beach of Santa Cruz. Obviously you need your means to live there.
Other than that, it was a comfortable, quick read and I recommend it to people looking for a friendly, relatable story.
There wasn't really anything… truly uique in the way of gardening advice. I will say that Stewart's other works like Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities and The Drunken Botanist are far more compelling. They have an edge to them, intrigue, history. Really, I'm not surprised that many people are saying they could have written something like this-- It seems like a book you'd write to get your feet wet before delving into a larger project. This is about a human experience, their errors, their triumphs. First gardens are always storytellers.
Something that did prevent me from relating to a lot of this, though, was Stewart's comfortable means. She can go out to the nursery every weekend and bring back hauls of annuals, seeds, bags of mulch and manure. I am not nearly so fortunate. My trips to the garden center need to be carefully planned out with a tight budget. I start mostly from seed. Dirt is precious, as are the plants we do end up buying. Weekend stints of impulse buying? I wish! But I can't blame her for this any more than I can blame her for living out on the beach of Santa Cruz. Obviously you need your means to live there.
Other than that, it was a comfortable, quick read and I recommend it to people looking for a friendly, relatable story.
September 15, 2007
I didn't know until just now that this book is from the author of Flower Confidential. I read it some time ago and loved it. It's the story of a first time gardener building her first garden, and the conversational tone with which she describes the excitement and dismay that a first garden engenders makes me feel we have been friends forever. I really like this Amy Stewart! This is a great book for anyone who wants to garden. She is realistic about the challenges and joyous about the triumphs, as a good cottage gardener should be.
February 4, 2013
This is a really inspiring and honest account of a budding love affair with gardening.
Only qualm I had was with the cat stories. Personally I can't stand when gardeners start long narratives about their pets. It's boring and mostly irrelevant. I love animals and a little about their involvement in the garden is ok but I don't get any enjoyment or useful information out of gardeners anthropomorphising their cats.
Otherwise, this is a great book!
Only qualm I had was with the cat stories. Personally I can't stand when gardeners start long narratives about their pets. It's boring and mostly irrelevant. I love animals and a little about their involvement in the garden is ok but I don't get any enjoyment or useful information out of gardeners anthropomorphising their cats.
Otherwise, this is a great book!
April 3, 2016
Ah, the naivete of the inexperienced gardener! When Stewart created her first garden she thought all there was to it was to clear weeds and put some seeds and plants in thte ground and magic would happen. Well, she did live in sunny California. How she learned otherwise, by painful experience, is what this book is about. Entertaining, informative, and funny, Stewart is a good story-teller who is always willing to share a joke on herself and expose her own foibles.
February 9, 2011
On of those books you read and think, I could write this! I could write better than this. How on earth did this get published?
I read garden books to learn from other gardeners. This book didn't teach me a thing.
I read garden books to learn from other gardeners. This book didn't teach me a thing.
April 19, 2018
I'm a garden memoir fanatic and this fell very flat for me.
September 30, 2023
I read this first when it came out in 2001 — during those dark days after 9/11 and I needed simple distraction. I just re-read it again and was once again surprised by how much I enjoyed this little gardening book.
From the book’s flyleaf:
Amy Stewart had a simple dream. She yearned for a garden filled with colorful jumbles of vegetables and flowers. After she and her husband finished graduate school, they pulled up their Texas roots and headed west to Santa Cruz, California. With little money in their pockets, they rented a modest seaside bungalow with a small backyard. It wasn’t much—a twelve-hundred-square-foot patch of land with a couple of fruit trees, and a lot of dirt. A good place to start.
From the Ground Up is Stewart’s quirky, humorous chronicle of the blossoms and weeds in her first garden and the lessons she’s learned the hard way.
From planting seeds her great-grandmother sends to battling snails, gophers, and aphids, Stewart takes us on a tour of four seasons in her coastal garden. Confessing her sins and delighting in small triumphs, she dishes the dirt for both the novice and the experienced gardener. Along the way, she brings her quintessential California beach town to life—complete with harbor seals, monarch butterfly migrations, and an old-fashioned seaside amusement park just down the street.
This garden memoir is set just down the coast from us in Santa Cruz and I can relate to the coastal garden trials and tribulations. Furthermore, Ms. Stewart captures the mindset of the amateur gardener with all its joys, mysteries and disappointments. And I’ve made all the mistakes and I’ve had the joy and disappointment. From the Ground Up is interwoven with some viable garden tips — but it’s more than just a gardening book – it’s a book about life.
If you have the gardening bug or you know someone who does. Whether you are into one specific species of plant or an eclectic gardener (we definitely fall into the latter category) — or even if you’d rather garden from your comfy chair – From the Ground Up is a delightful story of a new gardener, her first garden, and how she and her garden grew and changed.
More at: https://www.bookbarmy.com
From the book’s flyleaf:
Amy Stewart had a simple dream. She yearned for a garden filled with colorful jumbles of vegetables and flowers. After she and her husband finished graduate school, they pulled up their Texas roots and headed west to Santa Cruz, California. With little money in their pockets, they rented a modest seaside bungalow with a small backyard. It wasn’t much—a twelve-hundred-square-foot patch of land with a couple of fruit trees, and a lot of dirt. A good place to start.
From the Ground Up is Stewart’s quirky, humorous chronicle of the blossoms and weeds in her first garden and the lessons she’s learned the hard way.
From planting seeds her great-grandmother sends to battling snails, gophers, and aphids, Stewart takes us on a tour of four seasons in her coastal garden. Confessing her sins and delighting in small triumphs, she dishes the dirt for both the novice and the experienced gardener. Along the way, she brings her quintessential California beach town to life—complete with harbor seals, monarch butterfly migrations, and an old-fashioned seaside amusement park just down the street.
This garden memoir is set just down the coast from us in Santa Cruz and I can relate to the coastal garden trials and tribulations. Furthermore, Ms. Stewart captures the mindset of the amateur gardener with all its joys, mysteries and disappointments. And I’ve made all the mistakes and I’ve had the joy and disappointment. From the Ground Up is interwoven with some viable garden tips — but it’s more than just a gardening book – it’s a book about life.
If you have the gardening bug or you know someone who does. Whether you are into one specific species of plant or an eclectic gardener (we definitely fall into the latter category) — or even if you’d rather garden from your comfy chair – From the Ground Up is a delightful story of a new gardener, her first garden, and how she and her garden grew and changed.
More at: https://www.bookbarmy.com
May 23, 2019
This was like. Fine I guess. It falls in the same category as the self-indulgent woman moving to France and cooking a lot memoirs I love to read. I always start them feeling like I'm in the mood for something easy and wish-fulfillment-y, but then just end up getting kind of annoyed at them haha. Anyway as lovely as the garden sounds, this totally confirms my belief that I never want to live in California. She's describing such this idyllic perfect cottage right by the beach, amazing weather all year, a perfect garden, but then she's suddenly talking about driving to here or there. What kind of idyllic utopia makes you drive everywhere?? I know this is a me thing but it was really throwing me out of the vibe of the story. Anyway this is silly but it was like fine I guess. Read it if you like the idea of plants/gardens, don't really know a lot about them, and just want to fantasize a bit about being able to garden.
June 27, 2018
What I loved:
- The author's weekly impulse-shopping for flowers without any sense of what would work in her garden (we might be twins)
- Her jumping-in-and-doing-it-before-researching-and-learning approach to gardening, resulting in lots of going back and fixing
- The passion for gardens that are a little wild, where the flowers don't stand rigidly in a row but ramble all around and invite the visitor to do the same
- Descriptions of the tourists, and being a local in everyone else's vacation
- Two cats!!!! (RIP to my own sweet Maya and Tigerlily)
- Finally, I loved the writing style, which is honest and natural but still thoughtful and polished
Quite simply I loved every bit of this book. Highly recommend!!
- The author's weekly impulse-shopping for flowers without any sense of what would work in her garden (we might be twins)
- Her jumping-in-and-doing-it-before-researching-and-learning approach to gardening, resulting in lots of going back and fixing
- The passion for gardens that are a little wild, where the flowers don't stand rigidly in a row but ramble all around and invite the visitor to do the same
- Descriptions of the tourists, and being a local in everyone else's vacation
- Two cats!!!! (RIP to my own sweet Maya and Tigerlily)
- Finally, I loved the writing style, which is honest and natural but still thoughtful and polished
Quite simply I loved every bit of this book. Highly recommend!!
February 22, 2021
Each chapter ends with a recipe or a tip or a helpful guide which is what I need and the tone of the whole book was confiding and warm and frank. I grew up with gardens, big, endless, non-stop vegetable, fruit, and flower gardens that my sister and I were expected to help tend. And now that I am an adult, I don't know how they did it. I have hazy memories of how things should be planted. I remember bits and pieces and try to copy that, and mostly...bleh. I can kill plants without even trying.
Reading Stewart's book gave me a renewed sense of hope, a feeling of wanting to try over again. I could add compost! I could make a mistake and it would be okay. I could try something new! I could. Gardening is all about growth after all.
Reading Stewart's book gave me a renewed sense of hope, a feeling of wanting to try over again. I could add compost! I could make a mistake and it would be okay. I could try something new! I could. Gardening is all about growth after all.
May 14, 2018
This book is therapeutic in a world of politics and climate change. Stewart’s self-deprecating memoir is charming and I found myself imitating her novice-gardener actions, like going to the garden store to get compost and praying they only had one kind so I wouldn’t be forced to display my ignorance of all things flora. This is a well-written illustration of a new gardener’s life lessons and a reminder to appreciate beautiful outdoor spaces. Highly recommended to anyone with garden aspirations.
June 25, 2023
I read this book for a Herb Society book club. I enjoyed the book on some levels. It was easy to read. The subject matter was of interest to me.
However, the book was rather simplistic in the author’s approach to gardening. You reported many mistakes, but she purchased many how-to books. I kept wondering how she had so much to spend as she purchased one-gallon plants when seeds would have sufficed — such as with zinnias.
Who was this book written for? I’m not certain.
However, the book was rather simplistic in the author’s approach to gardening. You reported many mistakes, but she purchased many how-to books. I kept wondering how she had so much to spend as she purchased one-gallon plants when seeds would have sufficed — such as with zinnias.
Who was this book written for? I’m not certain.
May 20, 2017
This is a delightful account of the author's first garden. As a neophyte gardener myself, I really appreciated Stewart's writing about both the joys she found and mistakes she made. (I have experienced some of both!) Her authorial voice is evocative and funny. If you have any interest in gardening, I'd recommend this book.
June 11, 2018
A well-written documentation of the development of a gardener, from the initial bewilderment to the eventual plant snobbery, and surprise when things work out better than expected! And while I haven't had to leave a mature garden, the author's letter at the end of the book to her garden's new owner is articulate and moving. Be prepared to be inspired to grab a trowel and get your hands dirty!
February 2, 2019
Enjoyable story of a young woman's first year growing a garden in Santa Cruz, CA. It does focus on her garden but also gives you a glimpse into what it's like to live in a tourist town.
Not the best garden memoir out there but a solid 2.5 stars.
Not the best garden memoir out there but a solid 2.5 stars.
July 19, 2023
Amy’s writing style in this book is personable and friendly. The ups and downs of her gardening adventure are relatable and explained well. It was great how she would tell us about a mistake and then include information for the reader to avoid a similar mistake.
April 8, 2024
Other than her stance on allowing cats to be outside, it was an enjoyable read. Cats are a significant predators of wild birds and mammals, the authors cats are no exception. She acknowledged this but didn't care, which soured my opinion of her.
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