In the dark time of the year, there’s no more enjoyable reading for
me than garden and seed catalogs. This new book by Patricia Telesco
was an ideal supplement to my catalog reading and my sketches and plans
for my spring garden in my new home.
This was a fun book to spark ideas in even the most experienced
gardener. She offered suggestions for gardening by the moon cycles,
gardening with crystals, and blessing the land. She also gave
tips on fertilizers and companion plantings for those with little or
no gardening experience.
The bulk of the book described specific gardens designed for a
particular goddess. She included historic and cultural information
about the goddess, suggested plants that the goddess held dear,
patterns in which to lay out the garden to harmonize with that goddess,
colors, stones, and decorations that honor that goddess, how to
orient and adapt the garden to fit your garden and its location, and
what to do with the harvest afterward.
She selected goddesses from many different cultures, which was a
welcome sight to me. And I enjoyed reading her suggestions, which were
creative and evocative. I was disappointed that she did not include
drawings for any of the gardens, to see how she’d suggest grouping the
plants to be visually appealing and practical. And I wished she had
footnoted her information so that I could read more about a particular
goddess. For instance, I didn’t know the Egyptian goddess Kefa before
reading here about a garden dedicated to Her. It would have been
helpful to have the Kefa chapter footnoted with a resource or two
specifically about Her, rather than going to the bibliography at the
end of the book and guessing which might be the one to explore(Most
of the bibliography was about gardening and herbology, not mythology).
But despite these quibbles, I still think the book offers some
wonderful ideas and is worth the purchase. Enjoy your own dreams of
spring!