A classic in the literature of the garden, Green Thoughts is a beautifully written and highly original collection of seventy-two essays, alphabetically arranged, on topics ranging from "Annuals" and "Artichokes" to "Weeds" and "Wildflowers." An amateur gardener for over thirty years, Eleanor Perenyi draws upon her wide-ranging knowledge of gardening lore to create a delightful, witty blend of how-to advice, informed opinion, historical insight, and philosophical musing. There are entries in praise of earthworms and in protest of rock gardens, a treatise on the sexual politics of...

From the internationally acclaimed Czech writer Karel Capek comes this beautifully written and marvelously apt account of the trials and tribulations of the gardener's life. First published in Prague in 1929, The Gardener's Year combines a richly comic portrait of life in the garden, narrated month by month, with a series of delightful illustrations by the author's older brother and collaborator, Josef. Capek's gardeners--all too human, despite their lofty aspirations--often look the fool, whether they be found sopping wet, victims of the cobralike water hose, or hunched over, hands...

Oft quoted but seldom credited, Charles Dudley Warner's My Summer in a Garden is a classic of American garden writing and was a seminal early work in the then fledgling genre of American nature writing. Warner--prominent in his day as a writer and newspaper editor--was a dedicated amateur gardener who shared with Mark Twain, his close friend and neighbor, a sense of humor that remains deliciously fresh today.

In monthly dispatches, Warner chronicles his travails in the garden, where he and his cat, Calvin, seek to ward off a stream of interlopers, from the neighbors' huge-hoofed...