If you have ever sighed wistfully while leafing through garden design books lush with illustrations of meadowy expanses, sweeping perennial borders against a backdrop of graceful tall trees, gently trickling water features, charming gazebos, and kitchen gardens large enough to feed a ravenous extended family, then British novelist Charlotte Mendelson’s Rhapsody in Green will provide a welcome relief.
She is wickedly self-deprecating (referring to herself at one point as Incapability Mendelson), and many urban gardeners will identify with her grand ambitions for a very limited space. Her writing is full of sharp wit, and brims over with fierce enthusiasm (for unusual varieties of edible plants in particular). Is it foolhardy to keep trying—and failing–to grow heirloom apple trees, or is it laudable indomitability? You may laugh in recognition when Mendelson describes her “seed worship,” a frenetic compulsion to acquire heaps of seed packets for plants she may never have space to grow, or time to sow. Gardening projects fall by the wayside (germinating seeds abandoned, fruit leather made from foraged quinces growing a fur of mold) but Mendelson’s devotion to the garden finds her wandering away from her dinner guests to go putter among the leaves in the dark.
Despite the vicarious exhaustion of accompanying Mendelson on her journey of gardening trial and error, what makes this a compelling book to read is the quality of the writing, and the incisive attention to detail. She may struggle to eke a single zucchini or patch of mint out of her small plot, but Mendelson is keenly attuned to the natural world and to the unalloyed happiness that we find in growing things—even if we sometimes kill them. The book is arranged by season (subheadings include: “Wasting Money Wisely,” “Tristesse of Germination,” “The Fallacy of Mint,” “Tree Envy,” “On Being a Bad Gardener”). You may find yourself chortling one moment and stunned silent by her closely observed and beautiful description of the natural world the next.
Some books have bibliographies, but this one has “The Blacklist:” books which will “lead you astray; approach with caution.” Mendelson singles out Joy Larkcom as the author who started her on this path to ruin. She recommends The Organic Salad Garden as the most important title for the aspiring edible gardener.