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A Gentle Plea for Chaos : Reflections from an English Garden - Softcover

 
9780747548003: A Gentle Plea for Chaos : Reflections from an English Garden
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In this book, the author describes the way her garden evolved and how, without meaning to do so, she let it take over her life. She suggests moving away from planning, regimentation and gardening with the mentality of a stamp-collector. Frequently funny and always stimulating, she writes of the alchemy of gardens, of the 19th-century plant-collectors and plant illustrators and of the gardening philosophers, all fertilizing great thoughts along with their hollyhocks. She won the 1988 Sinclair Consumer Press Garden Writer of the Year Award.

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About the Author:

Mirabel Osler won the 1988 Sinclair Consumer Press Garden Writer of the Year Award. She lives in England.

From Kirkus Reviews:
Osler's plea is not so gentle; rather, its opinionated (though never dismissive), bell-clear, wickedly humorous, brilliant--a call for cultivated anarchy in the garden that turns an oxymoron into a sensuous, sensible act. ``Why garden? God knows . . . Damn those fine mornings. It's then that guilt seeps in like bad gas,'' groans Osler, one of England's best-known gardeners. Don't buy it for a minute. Her love of gardening is obvious, even if ``a great number of gardening jobs are pure slog.'' And her garden, eclectically wanton as it is, enemy of everything regimented and overly neat, shot through with the native vitality of plants for atmosphere and mystery, brings her to her knees much of the time; untidiness requires work. She wouldn't have it any other way. She likes a rude edge, to blur and enchant, the unruly ``quality that adds an extra sensory dimension.'' She loves hedges, walls, and paths--``the bones of a garden''--as long as they don't rob the garden of its sensuality. Here she offers not so much advice as the experience of her Shropshire garden: trees for their summer crowns and bare winter branches, stone for its texture and floral affinities, water for its attractiveness to humans and kingfishers and newts, bulbs for their individuality and scope. She's not tethered to flowers, but she loves them too (``who can go outside and kick a lily?''). Like her garden, Osler will not be confined, and she delights in moving off in many directions, to weather wars and the transporting quality of scent, botanical illustrations and the patron saints of gardening (Osler suggests a small figure of one in the garden ``might be just as efficacious as a blast of Phostrogen''). Osler's thinking is original, intuitive, and sharp as a tack; as a gardening writer she rightly sits up there with Henry Mitchell and Eleanor Perenyi. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9781408817896: A Gentle Plea for Chaos: Reissued

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9781408817896
Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2011
Softcover

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    Arcade..., 1998
    Hardcover

  • 9780747504962: A Gentle Plea for Chaos

    Blooms..., 1989
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  • 9780747534167: A Gentle Plea for Chaos (Bloomsbury Gardening Classics)

    Blooms..., 1997
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  • 9780747521204: A Gentle Plea for Chaos: Reflections from an English Garden

    Blooms..., 1995
    Softcover

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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A Gentle Plea for Chaos: Reflections from an English Garden This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780747548003

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Book Description Softcover. Condition: Very Good. The Book is in Very Good+ condition. In this book, the author describes the way her garden evolved and how, without meaning to do so, she let it take over her life. She suggests moving away from planning, regimentation and gardening with the mentality of a stamp-collector. Frequently funny and always stimulating, she writes of the alchemy of gardens, of the 19th-century plant-collectors and plant illustrators and of the gardening philosophers, all fertilizing great thoughts along with their hollyhocks. She won the 1988 Sinclair Consumer Press Garden Writer of the Year Award. Seller Inventory # SKU2010027576

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Book Description Soft Cover Full Gloss. Condition: As New. No Jacket. ### A Gentle Plea For Chaos ? 2000 ? by Mirabel Osler. ### ## ?The Most Original Book Of The Year, and Deliciously Written; Daily Telegraph # ### THIS BOOK: Classified as FINE: First Published in 1989, this Edition 2000. No bumping or shelf-marks. A gardening book, stepping away from traditional planting and making it work. ### ### Drawing on the experience of designing her garden, Mirabel Osler gives us a multitude of horticultural reflections. She describes with an imaginative touch and dry humour rarely found in gardening writing how her garden evolved and how, without meaning to, she let it take over her life. She muses on many themes, principally her 'gentle plea for chaos'? a move away from the planning and regimentation of gardening with the mentality of a stamp-collector. She writes about the alchemy of gardens, nineteenth-century plant collectors and plant illustrators, gardening philosophers, all fertilizing great thoughts along with their hollyhocks. ### #### INTERNATIONAL BUYERS: Please Note. FREE SHIPPING IS UK ONLY. PLEASE contact me for a shipping quotation. ####. Seller Inventory # 2020-021-gard

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