This book was a great find, especially great for winter reading during the recent snow storm. The book combines a discussion of plants that grow in the city with city history. But the book is not nearly as dry as that makes it sound. The book is filled with descriptions of pastoral scenes, descriptions of varieties of plants, of famous gardens of the past, of eccentric gardeners. White’s style is especially effective in conveying a sense of connection among people who have gardened and loved gardening in Philadelphia over the last few centuries. She achieves this way of making history come alive by anchoring in her own life experiences. The book reads like a sort of formalized journal that wanders off into the lives of other people. Woven expertly into these contemporary explorations are the stories and exploits of people of the past.

When White writes, toward the beginning of the book, “The more I live in my corner of Philadelphia, the more it seems that the city is an extensive garden, a bit wild in parts” (p.4). For someone living in Center City, that is a great eye-opener; beauty and nature are all around us, even in what seems to be the most urban settings. All we have to do is open our eyes and see it, whether it is plants growing in a hidden spot, or a sense of the past and what has come before.

One of the perennial appeals of the country lifestyle is the sense of living simpler, healthier, more in tune with the planet. The idea of self-sufficiency holds great appeal for those of us who live in a world of ever-increasing specialization. Not only does this world of expertise leave us unbalanced as human beings, it takes away our power of how the things we do and consume affect the planet and even ourselves. While quite useful as a direct guidebook to all aspects of rural living, this book offers far more to people who never intend to live a rural lifestyle.

The wonder of this book is that it encompasses both the lure of the country for nostalgic reasons while offering the idea that country living can be the cure to advancing the way we live in the future. In its practical how-to explanations of the parts traditional-based, rural living, it offers explanations of why these practices have lasted so long. It also compares them quite favorably with their modern counterparts in terms of health and satisfaction.

For instance, in the section on gardening, a description of almost every kind of vegetable is given with growing instructions and cooking suggestions, but greater is the context and commentary for each that explains how contemporary large-scale farming methods often fall short.

Because of technologies like the automobile, computer, internet and such, many of us can live anywhere we like. Cities have their benefits, of course, and this book is not saying everyone should or could live in a rural area and make their own soaps and butter. Rather, the book is useful even for people who never even dream of wanting to grow their own vegetables because we all need an understanding of the context of the foods we eat and the products we buy. This is how I feel the writers draw us toward the future, by saying we should all be more aware of the choices we make.

This bit of criticism of the automatic way most of us live is softened and made more palatable by the style of Clarissa Dickson Wright, familiar to many of us as half of the Two Fat Ladies cooking team from the 1990s. Her personal feelings against supermarkets, American commerce and carrots are (except for the carrots) fully justified in facts and presented in a straightforward and entertaining manner.

This is a perspective that is not always easy to come by in the American media. We tend to focus on commerce, and nutrients and fat and cholesterol and pollution, but not on questioning the foundations of the way we live. It sounds like a lot for a manual on how to live a country life, but this book really is a worth look at by urbanites and suburbanites for its eye-opening perspective if nothing else.

Like gentle flower

Unfurling in the morning,

Slowly waits the sun.

Our “Christmas Cactus” has decided to bloom this week. Um, Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

Our trip to Colonial Williamsburg in April 2009 was my second, but the gardens struck me the most on this trip. I was so inspired, I only wish I had a bigger yard to implement all the ideas.