Two Gardeners: Katherine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence--a friendship in… (2002)

this book presents the letters between kaktherine white - the wife of e.b. white who wrote columns for the New yorker and a gardener in north carolina. ( )

(This review was originally written for The Garden Bloggers' Book Club)

I finished Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence - A Friendship in Letters last night. I was enthralled and deeply moved by this book. Enthralled, because reading their letters was akin to reading modern day garden blogs. I was deeply moved by their deaths because I felt by the end of the book that I knew them.

Their letters also brought back a lot of memories for me. My maternal grandmother was a few years older than Katharine White. Unlike many women of her time, she married late in life and had my mother when she was close to 40. When I knew her, she had retired and was living in an apartment. I loved accompanying her when she went "visiting". Part of those visits involved tours of her friends' gardens. Gardens that looked very much like the photos and descriptions of Katharine's and Elizabeth's gardens. Their letters sounded eerily like the conversations during those visits.

The descriptions of the flower shows made me laugh! I remember shows like those derided in their letters. My poor mother tried and tried to learn flower arranging. Books, classes, garden club lectures, nothing helped. She finally settled on just entering specimen plants and flowers. I should add that she won several prizes in local shows. And that I inherited her inability to arrange flowers in an attractive manner. ( )

A compilation of the letters between two noted gardening writers, K.S. White (the wife of E. B. White) and Elizabeth Lawrence, this book shows the insecurities of each and the encouragement they gave one another to go on. There are many wonderful details of garden books and plants, for those who love gardening. The homey incidents of life during the thirty or so years these two women wrote are interesting, as well as their dedication to their work and families through severe health trials.
I simply enjoyed listening in as these women spoke, but I must also compliment editor Emily Herring Wilson in her job of putting the letters together and filling in the missing details and information, as well as the wonderful index in the back for reference. In her introduction is possibly one of the most moving thoughts of the whole book. She explained to me in one paragraph the behavior of my gardening grandmother. I had never understood why she always apologized for her gorgeous yard, but this paragraph gave me insight. For that, I love the book. ( )

Little did I know that once I started reading Two Gardeners that I would barely be able to put it down. I ended up finishing the book in three days. What a delightful book!

Elizabeth Lawrence and Katharine White first "met" when Lawrence wrote to White to praise White's article, "A Romp in the Catalogs," published in The New Yorker in 1958. This began a correspondence that lasted until Katharine's death in 1977.

Over the almost 20 years that they wrote to one another, they only met once, in 1967. Their's was a friendship of distance, and of words. They were drawn together because of a common interest in gardening and writing, but as their correspondence deepened, they became friends and confidants.

Because they both write about gardening, the reader assumes that there will be a lot of horticultural descriptions and advice throughout the letters. And while there is much talk of gardens and plants - both women describe what's in bloom, specific flowers and the weather - gardening is not the only glue that holds these women's friendship together.

To me, in many ways, this was not so much a book about gardening but a book about being an author. Both women spent their lives in the publishing world - Katharine as an editor and writer for The New Yorker and Elizabeth as a book author and columnist for magazines and newspapers - and their overriding concern with publishing and books shines through their letters. From the first letter from Elizabeth to Katharine suggesting different catalogs that Katharine could review in her next article, to the last letter from Katharine to Elizabeth making final arrangements for their letters to be archived, these two women were writers first.

Throughout their correspondence, Katharine asks for advice on books, catalogs and horticulture, and uses the information she learns from Elizabeth in her articles. Likewise, Elizabeth bounces ideas off Katharine and asks for advice in dealing with publishers. During the years, they trade books that they think the other would like.

This all seems as if the correspondence was dry and professional, but it was anything but that. Each woman continually encourages and praises the other, listens to her friend's description of household ills and personal problems, and chats about friends and family. At one point, when Katharine is very ill, Elizabeth sends her cuttings of various flowers and plants from her garden.

Another overriding concern to both women is health. Katharine White had a lot of health problems through the course of the book and according to the editor she and her husband E. B. White were very concerned about their health. Elizabeth Lawrence cares for her sick mother at home through about 10 years of letters and discusses her situation often. Additionally, as both women age (Katharine was 84 when she died in 1977, and Elizabeth was about 10 years younger), both their own physical condition and that of those around them begins to deteriorate.

As a reader of these letters, I felt that I began to know these two women. I admired their devotion to family, sympathized with their pains and illnesses, and enjoyed watching their friendship take root and flower over the years. ( )