The Garden Against Time

Pick it up: If you, like us, have an odd fascination for books about gardens. If you are one of the lucky few to have a garden and love working in it. If you don't have one but need the vicarious experience. 

In The Garden Against Time, Olivia Laing writes about the unique and wonderful place that gardens occupy in our lives. She writes about the soul satisfying experience of being in green spaces made all the more meaningful when we take a hand at creating them. She examines the notion of a garden as a personal paradise, and shares how the time she spent working in her garden has transformed her, and enhanced her own experience of life.

This is one of the many books that had its impetus in the isolation of the pandemic. Laing and her husband moved into their new home in Suffolk in August of 2020. The house came with a walled garden that boasted a fair amount of history, but was at the time in a state of neglect. Laing read about her new garden, learned what it used to be like, and decided to work to restore it even as she added a few of her own touches.

This book is an account of that restoration. Laing writes about her life in the garden, even as she steps back to muse about what gardens and green spaces mean to us as human beings. She reflects on the injustice inherent in the fact that not all of us have access to a garden. That what is a place of refuge and retreat for some people is also a space that excludes others.

Throughout the book, the writing moves between the personal and the political, reflecting on climate change, loss of habitat, and the resulting loss of biodiversity that is a direct consequence of an economic system based on the principle of endless growth. This is a remarkable book. The writing is gorgeous, and there is so much to think about and to reflect on, that the reader comes away from this book feeling both enriched and transformed.