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Summary: The book we have been waiting for!
Review: Great reading, especially if you dont suffer from the perfection syndrome or belong to a teaspoon club.Henry Mitchell is like an old friend and this book brings him back in a new way....
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Summary: Beautiful, wry writing about the pleasures of the garden.
Review: Henry Mitchell is to garden writing what Roger Angell is to baseball writing, which is to say, the best. These short essays are as much a philosophy of life as a detailed look at the trials and tribulations of a passionate gardener. Thoroughly enjoyable.
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Summary: Simply, the best gardening writer ever....
Review: I had spent many years reading Henry Mitchell's gardening columns in "The Washington Post," one of the greatest joys of that particular paper, and I was crushed by his death. How exciting to find anthologies of his columns! I've tossed the old, yellowing clippings of several columns that I had kept over the years. A wonderful reading experience, and wonderful stories (i.e. the hound and the clematis).
Pity the folks who offered poor reviews and hope that their eyes will be opened.
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Summary: When it's too cold to garden, this is a fair substitute...
Review: I was compelled to comment, as I noticed one reviewer felt that the book had no merit whatsoever. I would disagree completely. Mitchell's book is a wonderful and relaxing read and can be quite informative, if in a offhand sort of way.The only bad thing about the book is my envy. Mitchell had so many more options in his zone 7 garden in DC, than my zone 4 in Minneaopolis. Regardless, it's a very nice read in the evenings.
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Summary: An excellent read
Review: This book, the third collection of gardening essays from the late Henry Mitchell, again demonstrates why he was so respected. If there were ever a garden author you would expect to find holding forth over a beer at a neighborhood bar, daring anyone to start an argument with him, it would be Henry Mitchell. A man of strong opinions on almost everything to do with gardening and life in general, his commentary is always trenchant and pithy. Although it is still an excellent read, this collection does not reach the heights of the first two from the same author. Mitchell's first collection ('The Essential Earthman') was long out of print but is now available again. His second collection ('One Man's Garden') is also available. I'd recommend anyone not familiar with Mitchell's writing to read one of those before diving into this book, but only because they are so good, not because this one is bad. As with his other books, there is a lot of practical advice crammed into these pages, especially for city gardeners. Non-city dwellers may sometimes find the urbanocentric view disconcerting, but never uninteresting. If you are looking for a "how-to" book or a step-by-step guide, this isn't it. But if you want a book that gives you the "feel' of gardening, this one's for you.
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Summary: A delight for the gardener and non-gardener, alike
Review: This final volume of Henry Mitchell's pieces on gardening affirms my opinion that he is the finest writer of this genre ever. In just a few paragraphs, he is able to pull us right in to share his current gardening dilemma. We have all been there, but Mr. Mitchell's sense of humor and his indepth knowledge of gardening make this the volume the very best there is. This posthumous volume is the third to be published and we mourn the loss of this talented man. Required reading are the two earlier volumes," One Man's Garden" and "The Essential Earthman".
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Summary: Simply, the best gardening writer ever....
Review: Well I wish it weren't so, but this book is probably the last collection of essays by Henry Mitchell. It was compiled posthumously by his wife and contains the essays he did not include in his two books THE ESSENTIAL EARTHMAN and ONE MAN'S GARDEN. Although one might assume these essays are inferior, they are not, they are simply the ones he wrote after he published his two books which were collections of his essays to that point. As Allen Lacy says in the introduction, "For a couple of decades, the luckiest gardeners in the nation were those who subscribed to the Washington Post and ...on Thursday...could turn to Henry Mitchell's "Earthman" column. I can remember a rival column at the time, written by Jack Eden, and while Eden would be spraying for insects and dumping tons of fertilizer on his lawn, Mitchell dug up his lawn and turned it into garden. The essays are arranged by season--a collection of random writings that appeared in monthly columns in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His writing is warm, witty, and a joy to read on a cold winter day or in the middle of summer sitting on the patio with a tall glass of lemonade. He covers a variety of plants, grown in his own yard from those solid citizens--roses, peonies and irises--to the esoteric banana trees in pots and lilies in his horse trough pond. In one essay on plants that make their own elbow room, he writes of Agaves in pots that simply crack the sides when the pots become too small, the lotus that eventually sends tubers far beyond the tub, and the water lily that ran a hole in the side of the tank and escaped. The book is lovingly illustrated by Susan Davis to whom he dedicated the book, and Allen Lacey has written a very nice introduction. Mr. Mitchell died in the early 1990s but his essays are as fresh and wonderful today as they were the day he wrote them. I love his books and wish I had originally bought them all in hard cover as I have read them over and over.
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Summary: The last great collection...
Review: Well I wish it weren't so, but this book is probably the last collection of essays by Henry Mitchell. It was compiled posthumously by his wife and contains the essays he did not include in his two books THE ESSENTIAL EARTHMAN and ONE MAN'S GARDEN. Although one might assume these essays are inferior, they are not, they are simply the ones he wrote after he published his two books which were collections of his essays to that point. As Allen Lacy says in the introduction, "For a couple of decades, the luckiest gardeners in the nation were those who subscribed to the Washington Post and ...on Thursday...could turn to Henry Mitchell's "Earthman" column. I can remember a rival column at the time, written by Jack Eden, and while Eden would be spraying for insects and dumping tons of fertilizer on his lawn, Mitchell dug up his lawn and turned it into garden. The essays are arranged by season--a collection of random writings that appeared in monthly columns in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His writing is warm, witty, and a joy to read on a cold winter day or in the middle of summer sitting on the patio with a tall glass of lemonade. He covers a variety of plants, grown in his own yard from those solid citizens--roses, peonies and irises--to the esoteric banana trees in pots and lilies in his horse trough pond. In one essay on plants that make their own elbow room, he writes of Agaves in pots that simply crack the sides when the pots become too small, the lotus that eventually sends tubers far beyond the tub, and the water lily that ran a hole in the side of the tank and escaped. The book is lovingly illustrated by Susan Davis to whom he dedicated the book, and Allen Lacey has written a very nice introduction. Mr. Mitchell died in the early 1990s but his essays are as fresh and wonderful today as they were the day he wrote them. I love his books and wish I had originally bought them all in hard cover as I have read them over and over.
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