Help! Recommendations for Garden fiction?

I am always in search of combining my two loves: gardening and fiction reading. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson is still one of my favorite books.

Do any of you have any suggestions as to some good fiction books where a garden, gardening, or gardeners play a solid role in the book? I'd love any help here!

Jess (desperately looking out of the window waiting for February to go away)

On my shelves.
From the Ground Up by Amy Stewart NF
My Garden Book by Jamaica Kincaid NF
Led by the Nose by Jenny Joseph NF
The Garden of Reading edited Michelle Slung F
The Painted Garden by Mary Wooden NF
The first 3 NF reads like fiction so they are quite fun. Hope you find some of these interesting.

1: Sorry I can't answer the question, but I'm interested in the answer. And yes, February. I'm so wishing to be rid of the grungy snow.

2: I've read From the Ground Up, agree, it's entertaining. I was unaware of the garden book by Jamaica Kincaid, looks promising.

1: Oh, and you might try your question in the gardening group: http://www.librarything.com/groups/gardening.

A few more gardening memoirs that read like fiction
Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katharine S. White

Time and the Gardener by Elizabeth Sheldon

The Invisible Garden by dorothy Sucher

My Vegetable Love by Carl H. Klaus

There are more out there, look under gardening. Jamaica Kincaid's is good, as are the others

The first book that popped into my mind was The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. This is nonfiction, but it is so very good that it reads just like fiction. After reading that book, I bought an orchid to see if I could actually care for one at home. Now I have three orchid plants!

It's not about gardens, really. It is about looking for orchids where they grow naturally.

Seedfolks by Paul Fleishcman -- how one person cleaning up a vacant urban lot and planting something there transformed a community. This is a children's/YA book.

One I would recommend is Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen.

4 more from my shelves.
The Elves of Lily Farm by Penny Kelly
Cultivating Delight by Diane Ackerman
A Garden in Luca by Paul Gervais
French Dirt by Richard Goodman
Hope you will find something in all these posts to enjoy. ;-)

Hi Everyone! Thanks so much for the recommendations! I'm definitely going to start reading some of these! I haven't read any of them except for Garden Spells.

Anyone else have anything good to suggest for fiction plus gardening?

It's a stretch, but a dead body was found in Flavia's father's garden in Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman- it's new, and I'm currently in the middle of it. It's quite good.

Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach- it's non-fiction, but looks like a pretty good story.

You might like Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart - not fiction, but certainly interesting.

I hadn't realized Amy Stewart wrote another book. Hope my library has it.

One of the first books I won through Early Reviewers was a gardening mystery entitled The Big Dirt Nap. It was the first in a series, I believe. It was okay, but not a favorite.

Jim & Joyce Lavene have a gardening cozy mystery series as well. I have not read any of them.

Hi Jessie, here's my small contribution:
fiction:
- The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys
- The forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
- The French gardener by Santa Montefiore

non-fiction (but very entertaining!):
- Slow Love by Dominique Browning
- The Gardener's Year by Karel Capek
- Elizabeth and her German garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
- Dear Friend and Gardener by Christopher Lloyd
- In my garden by Christopher Lloyd
- The Well Tempered Garden by Christopher Lloyd
- Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi
- My Summer in a Garden by Charles Dudley Warner
- The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession by Andrea Wulf

And I found this link VERY interesting. It contains a list of many cozy garden-mysteries which I hope to check out soon. It comes from this website: http://www.cozy-mystery.com

Good luck with the gardening and the reading!

Any of Beverley Nichols' garden series: Down the Garden Path; A Thatched Roof; A Village in a Valley; Merry Hall; Sunlight on the Lawn; Laughter on the Stairs; Garden Open Today; Garden Open Tomorrow; Down the Kitchen Sink; etc. These are non-fiction but are gentle, dear books about several gardens he had created.

The Lost Garden by Helen Humphries
Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian Garden Writing Von Edwinna et. al
The Penguin Book of Garden Writing edited by David Wheeler

Classic garden books:
Vita Sackville West's Garden Book by Vita Sackville-West
The Gardener's Essential by Gertrude Jekyll

The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore.
Consider the Lily by Elizabeth Buchan -- just reissued, I think.

Both are good.

Many thanks to everyone for their suggestions! I am definitely going to kindle up some of these asap. Gotta love LT for this stuff :)

They might be hard to find - I've only read the first from the library - but Mat Coward has written a couple of mysteries set on some allotments.

You might want to take a look at Gene Stratton Porter's novels, like A Girl of the Limberlost. She had an interest in the natural world, and incorporated that interest into her fiction. Her books aren't really about gardens and gardening, but I think they would appeal to readers with a gardening interest.

Hey there, thanks again for the two new recommendations.
Elkiedee #20, I'm going to search around, they sound like the ticket
#21, I'm also a fan of the natural world stuff too, as long as it doesn't lean too political.

I've never noticed any overt political messages in Gene Stratton Porter's books. There may be some that went over my head. She died in the 1920s, and I'm not very familiar with the politics of her era.

Janis Harrison has a series of cozy mysteries featuring gardening. I haven't read any of them but I picked up Bindweed at a sale and its been living on MT TBR.

If you enjoy ferns you might like Oliver Sacks nonfiction book Oaxaca Journal as he tools around Oaxaca with other fern affectionados looking for rare specimens.

24 (streamsong): Oh, yes, Oaxaca Journal, which I picked up at some random moment because of the author. It's a sweet book, describing the people in the group as well as the fern.

Books with tangential garden themes that I've enjoyed reading have been Under the Tuscan Sun, which is a very different read than the movie (better, of course). Along with refurbishing her house, she discovers hidden gardens and Italian recipes. This was one of the most pleasant reads I've had in a long time.

Also currently reading La's Orchestra Saves the World which seems to have a garden-related subplot. Not finished yet, though, so I can't give you a thorough recommendation.

Glad you posted this thread! It has inspired me!

V

haha #23: It's funny isn't it.. that politics of the 1920s means less to me and can even be a way to see into that time period. :) Politics of the current generations seems to be preachy to me on either side. I guess all things mellow with age.

#26 I have read Under the Tuscan Sun and yes, thats a perfect example of a reads like fiction book where time and 'feeling' is spent in the garden. I haven't even heard of La's Orchestra though, so let me know.

I too hope people keep posting on this thread, its going to provide many good suggestions for the future. I have the need to read gardening related books nearly every february as I get gardening fever and its too early to do anything about it.

Just finished la's Orchestra. It was quite good, set duriing WWII. I don't know how much to share without spoiling it. A lot of the action takes place in a garden or on farms, but not really about gardening. Like a good juggling act has a lot of snazzy tricks in it, but the patter is really what makes it a good show. A good, sensitive read with a strong female protagonist.

For what it's worth...

I just came across mention of this recent children's book, The Ink Garden of Brother Theophane, about Irish monks using natural vegetation in their manuscript inks.

Susan Wittig Albert has a cozy mystery series starring China Bayles. Here is the link to the Common Knowledge page for the series. It's not about gardening exactly, but it is about herbs... The first book in the series is called Thyme of Death.

There is a lovely book by Elizabeth Murray on Monet's Garden-Monet's Passion: ideas, Inspiration and Insights from the Painter's Gardens. I got it from the ER programme here on LT. Beautiful photos by the author as well.

In the Garden with Jane Austen by Kim Wilson

Tim over on Clubreads just posted a review of the quirky The Baron in the trees by Italo Calvino. Again it's probably on the fringes of what you are after but worth a mention.
Cosimo, a young eighteenth-century Italian nobleman, rebels by climbing into the trees to remain there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence and even has love affairs.

Wow, thanks for the additions to the list. :) I might be here awhile!

I've just discovered the amazing results you get with tagmashing.

If you tagmash garden and fiction, you get this result:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/fiction,+garden

You can include or exclude any tag you want, e.g. if you'd like to exclude children's books, the tagmash would look something like this:
fiction, garden, --children.
Then you get this result:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/fiction%2C+garden%2C+--children

I've been trying all sorts of combinations and although this looks too wonderful to be faultless, I've already discovered many books I'd never have come up with otherwise.

Btw, I'm trying to revive a group I started last year called Gardens & Books which is meant for anyone who like gardens, books and the combination of these. You're welcome to join if you feel like it.