Product Description

In the mode of her bestseller A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman celebrates the sensory pleasures of her garden through the seasons. Whether she is deadheading flowers or glorying in the profusion of roses, offering sugar water to a hummingbird or studying the slug, she welcomes the unexpected drama and extravagance as well as the sanctuary her garden offers.

Written in sensuous, lyrical prose, Cultivating Delight is a hymn to nature and to the pleasure we take in it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #233210 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Amazon.com
Diane Ackerman relishes the world of her garden. As a poet, she finds within it an endless field of metaphors. As a naturalist, she notices each small, miraculous detail: the hummingbirds and their routines, the showy tulips, the crazy yellow forsythia. Of visiting deer she writes, "I love watching the deer, which always arrive like magic or a miracle or the answer to an unasked question."

In her popular book A Natural History of the Senses, Ackerman celebrates the human body; in A Natural History of My Garden, she turns her attention to the world outside the body, outside the human sphere. Structured by seasons, this is a book of subtle shifts, but the reader never feels lost. Her prose is so welcoming, at times it feels like she's talking directly to you, although her lush, poetic language is the opposite of speech.

Distracted urban readers craving a book that will transport them would do well to spend time immersed in these pages, as will gardeners who've lost appreciation for their plot. Ackerman is a generous writer--a teacher who will share treasured, obscure passages from Beckett or Hawthorne. She's emotional and highly charged, and her descriptions are so clear they're small marvels. She's remarkable for her ability to find mystery everywhere. --Emily White

From Publishers Weekly
In a generous and jauntily haphazard excursion through the four seasons of her Ithaca, N.Y., backyard landscape and the innumerable interests of her fertile mind, poet and naturalist Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses; A Natural History of Love) reprises her role as an enchanting intellectual sensualist. Her extensive flower (and even weed) beds provide both subject matter and metaphor. More interested in what a great garden does for a person's spirit and soul than in how to make it grow, Ackerman buzzes productively from idea to revelation to insight, lighting on topics as diverse as how roses are reminiscent of dolls' faces; why we see faces in nature; how plants, animals and humans are alike; whether plants have motives and instincts; how flowers protect themselves from both heat, aridity and freezing cold; and why women are more prone to hypothermia than men in just five paragraphs. She celebrates the diversity of weeds, finds beauty in chaos and order, embraces trial and error as a way of learning and respects the inevitable cycle of birth, death and rebirth. (Oct.)Forecast: With the success of her earlier works preceding her, and an eight-city author tour and 15-city NPR campaign to come, Ackerman's breezy philosophical lyricism should flourish amoang both garden enthusiasts and fans of encyclopedic curiosity.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Poet, essayist, and author of the popular A Natural History of the Senses and A Natural History of Love, Ackerman turns her inquisitiveness to the subject of gardens. Although her latest book is presented as a gardening journal, with sections on the four seasons, her musings know no bounds and verge on stream-of-consciousness. One typical chapter ranges over topics that include landscape architecture, lawns, fences, autumn colors, childhood memories, the difference between labyrinths and mazes, the history and definition of gardens, and compost, all peppered with quotations from a dozen authors. Depending on one's literary tastes, Ackerman's distinctive lyrical style can be intriguing or annoying; she offers no citations for her quotations and factual assertions. Her book will charm many readers who pick it up to absorb a few pages of observations at a time, but it is not for reading at long stretches. Nor does it have much in the way of practical gardening suggestions. Recommended for larger public libraries.
- Daniel Starr, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

a gardener's deligh
I read this book from the library and then bought it for myself because it is definitely a re-reading book. I have read it several times now and it amazes me every time. The depth of knowledge and the decriptions of her plants along with the distractions of her life are interesting, engaging and wonderful to read. Diane is one of my favorite authors but this book combines her scientific wordy writing style with one of my loves - plants and gardening. I read it when I'm sad and it reminds me of the wonders in the world and in my yard and neighborhood. I envy her spending so much time in her garden. I highly recommend it to plant people who like to read books besides the plant manuals that tell you how to grow things, enjoying the plants is the ultimate pleasure.

I loved it, and I�m not even remotely a gardener
Gardens. They're great, and I have a lovely one in my front yard. But I can claim exactly none of the credit. My style of gardening is to sit on the front steps chatting with Teri, my gardener, while she prunes the shrubs and tucks primroses and lobelia and cyclamen into the little bare spots.
But I love reading about people who DO enjoy gardening, and Diane Ackerman is a consummate writer on the subject. I've read The Moon by Whale Light and A Natural History of the Senses, two others of her several books, and find myself equally charmed by this one. It's a casual tour through the four seasons of her upstate backyard garden. But, as she's a naturalist, a poet, and a philosopher, she doesn't stop with just the plants; she uses the plants and their interdependent roles as metaphors to browse mentally through a wide variety of topics, including what gardens can do for people more than how people can tend a garden. It's like a role reversal of sorts. Some of the subjects that her free- and far-ranging mind roams over include: how we are like plants, plant's self-defense mechanisms, why we see faces in nature, etc. Her lyrical writing and vast, encyclopedic curiosity sometimes remind me of Annie Dillard's nature writing, a comparison that should be considered a compliment to both authors.

Stop and Smell the Words
Previous reviewers, grumps and rhapsodics both, are pretty accurate in their review of this work. If you're looking for a lot of how-tos about gardening, you won't find them here. What you will find is someone who LOVES her garden, and loves reflecting on it. While the "hard labor" of gardening is something she is glad to hire other people to do for her, she revels in it's lovely blossoms and the wildlife who visit it. My husband was put off by her hiring out the hard work too, but all I could think was, "If I could afford it, I'd hire out the nasty stuff too"
I really don't think it is the author's intent to instruct us on how to garden, what she does is inform us, through her example, that delight can be found in many aspects of gardening. It is a zen-like philosophy; focus lovingly and intently on what you do.
While there are no earth shattering revelations here, Ms Ackerman's musings reminded me of poems I had forgotten, books I'd been meaning to read, and, yes, plants I'd been meaning to plant. While some may have a problem with this as an overall book, I can't imagine anyone objecting to it page-by-page. This may be one of those books to be read just a few pages at a time. Savor each page as you would a rose blossom, enjoy the loveliness of it, then move on.