For philosophizing gardeners and anyone who likes to pick up a spade and get their hands dirty

Gardeners
discover a new world every year--whether they're cultivating heirloom
vegetables, foraging for wild herbs, creating a small permaculture
garden on a city balcony, or maintaining a plot for self-sufficiency.

But
why garden at all? These personal essays by writers, designers, and
master gardeners dig into gardening's philosophical dimensions and tend
to the aesthetic, cultural, political, and sociological implications of
gardens and the people who keep them.

Originally published in
German, this delightful volume addresses gardening's most deep-rooted
questions and highlights the magic that, year after year, makes us pick
up a shovel and get back into the garden.

Awarded the German Garden Book Prize in the Best Garden Prose Category

"What
is remarkable is that the publication project is something very
individual... the spectrum ranges from the 'plea for weeds' to the
'metaphysics' of the garden to urban gardening and garden shows, and the
realization that gardens are 'hopelessly ambivalent'--all in all a very
interesting volume." - Jury Citation