Margaret Roach

I love this book. The author's essays are thoughtful and a joy to read. I picked up so many odd and useful bits of information in the process of reading the book that I'm very grateful for the excellent index which will help me find them again.

Somebody dropped the ball badly on the subtitle. This book is in no way a hands-on primer, despite its very helpful section on saving tomato seeds and a few other detours into the extremely practical. "A gardener's companion" comes closer to the mark. show more Margaret Roach in cheerful humility shares all-too-relatable stories of gardening mistakes that made me cringe along with her, and feel better about my own mishaps. Those "easy to grow" plants that turn out to be invasive, oh my! She also shares joys of the garden. She's more of a landscape gardener, grower of ornamentals, and I'm all about edible perennials and food forests, but after her praise of the beauty of large-leafed plants in general and rhubarb in particular, I'll never see my rhubarb patch as mere pies-in-process again.

Rather than the typical through-the-year arrangement of garden books by seasons, Roach has chosen to divide the gardening cycle into six stages of life. It works so much better. I look forward to rereading this book at the appropriate moments of many years to come. show less

How often does a person remember someone’s name from a magazine article or masthead? Well, I remember Margaret Roach from years of issues of Martha Stewart Living and was thrilled to read her book here. It seems to be a 21st-anniversary revision of a prior book, and it’s a good update of practices, pests and plants.

It’s coffee-table sized, with smooth pages and beautiful, full-color (often, full-page) photos that are very well-captioned. The organization is by life cycle/annual show more calendar, dedicating two months each to Conception, Birth, Youth, Adulthood, Senescence, and Death and Afterlife. I started dutifully at the beginning and it was informative and pleasurable, but then jumped to the current time of year (May/June), which immersed me in early summer tasks and plants before I went back and then went on to finish the rest.

Roach’s voice is practical and encouraging, reminding the reader to design a landscape that is beautiful when viewed from inside the house (where one mostly will see it). Overall, it’s less a reference or how-to, and more so a lush, inspirational volume about one New York/zone 5B garden, perfect for armchair gardeners and for active gardeners when the day’s tasks are complete. show less

I loved this book - no pun intended, but it grew on me as I read and when I came to the end, I didn't want it to end. It is not a gardening memoir - it is a tale of a woman finding her place in the world on her own terms. Her embrace of being alone and learning that she liked that state was very refreshing. I loved her reverence for and quest for knowledge of the natural world. I loved the growing relationship with Jack the cat, particular fitting since I read this to Agatha, the wild cat show more beast who lives in the library and is getting tamer by the book. show less

Your response to this quote from the jacket flap will tell you whether or not you'll like this memoir - "an attainable fantasy that anyone can indulge in." Sure, retire to a few rural acres in your early fifties, renovate the small house, add a heated shelter for the stray cat you've adopted, re-route the driveway and install a 16' gate across it, hire a part-time garden helper and handle snow removal by putting on an extra coat to move your car for the neighbor with the plow. Oh, and sadly show more your accountant told you to incorporate yourself (not a cheap process) so now you can't collect unemployment. I give this book 3 stars because Roach, largely self-educated but highly intelligent and widely read, writes beautifully tho not without incessant whining (and tediously ostentatious use of Latin names for local fauna). But enough with the neurotic pity-party! Roach should stick with her charming (in the best Martha Stewart manner) and award-winning gardening blog.
And if you want to see how protected you are by a 16' gate, see David Sedaris' "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk." show less