A Year in Our Gardens: Letters by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy

by Nancy Goodwin, Allen Lacy

This engaging collection of letters follows the course of a year in the gardens of two passionate gardeners, Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy. They share a climate zone (7A), but their gardens differ enormously. Lacy gardens on a 100-by-155-foot plot of former farmland in southern New Jersey, on soil so sandy that he must water frequently if he is to garden at all. Goodwin gardens on rich clay loam at her historic piedmont North Carolina home--which comprises more than sixty acres of woodland, meadow, and established plantings--and she refuses to irrigate, because she believes in growing only those plants that are naturally adapted to the conditions of her land.

Through their letters, Lacy and Goodwin provide a charming and revealing chronicle of their lives and the lives of their gardens. They exchange stories of their horticultural successes and failures; trade information about a great many plants; discuss their hopes, fears, and inspirations; and muse on the connections between gardening and music, family, and friendship.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 12, 2001

Reviews

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly educational, quiet, a lovely approach to having old gardening advisors.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Year In Our Gardens: Letters by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacey by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacey (U.N.C. Press 2001) (635.9). Two preeminent horticulturists record the changes in the seasons in their gardens through an exchange of missives. My rating: 7/10, finished 2009.