CULTIVATING DELIGHT
A Natural History of My Garden 262 pp., including addenda
by Diane Ackerman
HarperCollins Publishers
Book design by Elliott Beard
$25 hardcover

I think it's terrific that expert gardeners can be such fine writers. It
is surely the passion for their gardens which when translated into words
can make the act of weeding as fascinating to read about as the Sack of
Constantinople.Their writing is positive and informative, generally
unorthodox and invariably witty. Who could not fail to fall in with
Christopher Lloyd's wry appraisal that "It is wise not to get too
sentimental over a gardenia plant... there is a limit to the number of
open gardenia blossoms that the human frame can tolerate at close
quarters."
Ms Ackerman is simply a marvelous writer whose graceful prose is a delight
which lingers on to gratify. More, she offers essential knowledge in such
profusion that whenever I had to lay the book aside for one interruption
or another, it was with an illogical feeling of irritation that I might
miss something vital if I didn't rush back to it.
It's what another age would call a ramble, with digressions, asides,
discreet ahems to call attention to one or another of the minutiae that
comprise the whole. A trip with myriad destinations, some hints merely,
others scanned avidly as through a glass. She writes with a distinctive
rhythm as catching as that of Shakespeare; after an hour's reading I found
myself framing my language in similar cadence. But then, of course! She's
a poet.
The images come upon one unexpectedly; imaginative and pinpoint accurate.
"...enriched the soil to the point of stupefaction." - "...snowing like
gunshot." .As I read I am pleasantly submerged in information. The best
kind - things about which I'd never heard or even thought of before. How
much hollow space a sycamore tree can hold. Thomas Jefferson's passion for
new peas. The changing shapes of raindrops as they fall, pulsating 300
times a second (who measures such things? and how?). Pine cones that can
catch wind-blown pollen from any direction.
Her writing flows at a pace like conversation, direct to the reader, laced
with quotes, facts, opinions, and tantalizing glimpses into her life
outside her garden - exotic references - Antarctica, Istanbul at sixteen,
piloting a plane.
We are reminded that a garden is not simply an arrangement of flowers,
shrubs, vines and trees. A garden has other populations - at least this is
true of Ms Akerman's garden, which is a rollicking gathering place for all
sorts of animals, birds, and insects who come to feast and court and stay
to raise their young. She observes them with compassionate interest -
whether slug or squirrel - and records their daily activities with an
attachment which is both cosseting and scientific
A garden is also a battleground where defeats usually balance out
victories, with the victories themselves so ephemeral that the only thing
sure enough on which to bet is that it won't last. Yesterday's gorgeous
shrub might be (and too often is) today's lifeless eyesore, laid low by
any one of a list of hazards too immense to catalogue.
Cultivating Delight is an invigorating and iridescent progression through
the seasons with a principal focus on Ms Ackerman's garden in Ithaca in
upstate New York, but it escapes from boundaries as effortlessly as one of
her deer bounding over the fence with swings throughout the world to bring
snippets of fascinating lore for gardening and living, the two firmly
enmeshed. What this book conveys with almost scorching fervor is her
enthusiasm for life. Life of all sorts, hers, her friends, beetles, moths,
humming birds, wrens, squirrels, deer, moss and magnolias, roses and
weeds, campsis radicans and sedum spectabile. And it is obvious she is
living it. She bicycles, swims 50 laps at dawn, puts ear tags on
squirrels, lectures, and gardens. And has made time to produce seventeen
additional books.
Moving smoothly from a tale of St. Francis tolling the church bell to
waken his village so they could look at the moon, she slips ahead into the
general principles of lunar gardening. "Lunar gardening," she writes, "may
sound au courant and New Age, but it has an ancient history, especially
among astrologically attuned cultures. Even The Old Farmer's Almanac
abides by the phases of the moon to create its gardening calendar.
Personally, I follow the simple rule of green thumb: unless you're living
off the land or the land is your living, the best time to do gardening
chores is whenever you're in the mood. You'll win some, you'll lose some,
and some will get rained out, but at least you'll enjoy your garden."
Last night here high in New Mexico we had our first killing frost as the
bottom dropped out of the thermometer. This morning I walked through the
sad ruin of my garden and thought ruefully about a poignant observation Ms
Ackerman quotes, that a killing frost devastates one's heart as well as
one's garden. Like her husband, I hate winter.
A circumstance which makes Cultivating Delight such a joy to read is that
Ms Ackerman never stands outside her subject, observing and recording. She
is always within it, living it, a part of it. Her personality forms it,
her ebullience fuels it, her affection maintains it. She says, "One way I
cultivate delight is to abandon myself to individual sensations, savoring
them until they vanish. A garden pleases all the senses, including the
kinesthetic sense of moving through space. For example, smelling a peony's
blossoms until the nose quits from the sheer abundance of scent. In that
moment, the universe - from the dirt below one's feet clear out to the
farthest stars, and beyond that in time back to the Big Bang - all of it
vanishes. Nothing exists but the citrusy smell of one peony. How long can
I hold the sensation in my mind before it evaporates? I don't care. I
cultivate delight."
It's an outstanding book. I loved it, first page to last.