Designing a Garden: A Guide to Planning and Planting through the Seasons

Patricia Morley is a professor of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University, an associate fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute, and author of Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Who can reduce the subtlety and complexity of a garden to a definition?
Allen Paterson, a longtime gardener and a teacher of gardeners, offers
this summary: “A beautiful garden is both a work of art and a work in
progress: a considered, slowly developing association of trees, shrubs,
perennials, annuals, and structures such as patios and walls.” The
temporary and ever-changing quality of this living art is caught in the
fact that Paterson’s own garden is his only as long as he continues to
be director of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton and Burlington,
Ontario.

Jostling for elbowroom in a crowded field, a new book on garden design
is likely to fail or succeed on its organization, its photographs, and
the personal voice of its author. Paterson’s photographs are superb,
his organization orderly and comprehensive. He covers landscaping,
roses, perennials, flowering bulbs, vegetables, and small greenhouses.
To these basics he adds a glossary, an index, a bibliography, and a zone
map.

The personal voice is both practical and aesthetically sensitive. To
these twin necessities Paterson adds a philosophical and historical
approach that makes for pleasant reading. For example: “It is
convenient that the turn of the year, which no doubt all major religions
celebrate, is also the time to begin, conceptually, the garden year.”

This book draws on decades of experience, a deep love of plants, and a
personal sensitivity that is intellectual, creative, and playful.