Are gardeners crazed workaholics? Are weeds really plants whose virtues simply haven't been found yet? Is the new rage for "wild gardens" merely old indolence hiding behind the shrubbery
Are gardeners crazed workaholics?
Are weeds really plants whose virtues simply haven't been found yet?
Is the new rage for "wild gardens" merely old indolence hiding behind the shrubbery of political correctness?
These are just a few of the topics that horticultural humourist Des Kennedy tackles in Crazy About Gardening, a book first published almost twenty years ago and now reprinted in a series of thought-provoking and rib-tickling essays that lovingly probes the foibles and follies on North America's favourite pastime.
Des Kennedy
was born in Liverpool, England in 1945. He immigrated with his family to Toronto in 1955 and moved to British Columbia in 1968. When Des writes about how everyone can live in harmony with nature, he walks the walk. The gardens he and his partner Sandy have created on their acreage have been featured in various books, magazine articles, calendars and television programs. Starting with a stump ranch, Des and Sandy put in their fruit and vegetable garden on Pickles Road in 1972, adding an ornamental garden in 1980, featuring mostly annuals, biennials and wildlings. "In 1988 we rather recklessly expanded the ornamental area," he says, "focusing on old roses, unusual perennials, shrubs and trees and considerable stonework." Also excelling as an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and environmental activist, Des Kennedy has lived for more than 40 years on Denman Island.
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