Tasha Tudor's Garden

by Tovah Martin, Richard W. Brown (Photographer)

Overview

Tasha Tudor's poignant art has fascinated adults and children for decades. Her nineteenth-century New England lifestyle is legendary. Gardeners are especially intrigued by the profusion of antique flowers -- spectacular poppies, six-foot foxgloves, and intoxicating peonies -- in the cottage gardens surrounding her hand-hewn house. Until now we've only caught glimpses of Tasha Tudor's landscape. In this gorgeous book, two of her friends, the garden writer Tovah Martin and the photographer Richard Brown, take us into the magical garden and then behind the scenes. As we revel in the bedlam of Johnny-jump-ups and cinnamon pinks, the intricacy of the formal peony garden, and the volumptuousness of her heirloom roses, we also learn Tasha's gardening secrets. How does she coax forth her finicky camellia blossoms in the dead of a Vermont winter? How does she train that fantastic topiary to model for her artwork? How can she keep her crown imperials from tumbling in the winds? Tasha's garden reflects a wealth of family lore, perfected through the years and years of working the soil. We may be dazzled by the beauty of the garden, but we come away from this book with practical ideas about improving our own plots of land. "Paradise on earth" is how Tasha describes her garden, and along with the flowers and the vegetables that provide her food, her paradise is filled with an enchanting menagerie -- corgies, Nubian goats, cats, chickens, fantail doves, and forty or more exotic finches, cockatiels, canaries, nightingales, and parrots, which inhabit her collection of antique cages. Tasha's beautiful watercolors and her enchanting anecdotes color this sublimely beautiful book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547346007
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	10/05/1994
Sold by:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	190,201
File size:	195 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Tovah Martin is one of this country's best-known garden writers and lecturers. She is the author with Richard W. Brown of Tasha Tudor's Garden which won the highest award from the Garden Writers Association of America. She holds the gold medal for horticulture from the Massachsetts Horticultural Society.
Richard W. Brown grew up in the Boston area and left the city to make a life in rural Vermont. A graduate of Harvard, where he studied art and art history, he taught school before embarking on a career as a photographer. His books include The Private World of Tasha Tudor, Moments in Eden, The View from the Kingdom, A Vermont Christmas, and Pictures from the Country.

Editorial Reviews

The noted children's-book author and illustrator Tasha Tudor, ``half naturalist, half gardener,'' lives with her dogs, Nubian goats and countless trees, plants and flowers on a 250-acre hilltop farm in Vermont. Here Martin (The Essence of Paradise) and Brown (The Private World of Tasha Tudor) politely dog her trail during the growing months to learn the hows and whys of her gardening prowess. A few knacks and secrets: one of Tudor's particularly prized theme gardens on the property is ``hemmed in by a ring of tall lilacs, which artfully disguise an electric fence to keep the deer at bay.'' Another: ``The primroses sink their toes only into well-composted goat manure mixed with leaf mold.'' Perhaps the ultimate: Tudor's ``manure tea,'' an invention consisting of cow flops and water steeped all summer in a caldron for use as fertilizer. Tea or no, the book's roundly picturesque and dappled with full-color photos of Herself minding the peonies and strolling barefoot (by preference) past the daffodils. The text by Martin is friendly and informative. A list of Tudor's favorite nurseries is included. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

By savoring Martin's delightfully intimate account of seasonal activities in Tasha Tudor's Vermont garden and by gazing upon the included photographic studies of the legendary gardener in her element--surrounded by lavish flower borders--Tudor's reputation is indelibly imprinted. From the house on a hilltop (built by her son and patterned after a centuries-old farmhouse), to her clothing style (layers of garments resembling the look of a pioneer woman), Tudor epitomizes a Yankee lifestyle that will enrapture readers. In fact, Tudor would probably already be a "national living treasure" if our government bestowed the equivalent of Japan's accolade for individuals of outstanding artistic achievement.

Alice Joyce

"By savoring Martin's delightfully intimate account of seasonal activities in Tasha Tudor's Vermont garden and by gazing upon the included photographic studies of the legendary gardener in her element--surrounded by lavish flower borders--Tudor's reputation is indelibly imprinted. From the house on a hilltop (built by her son and patterned after a centuries-old farmhouse), to her clothing style (layers of garments resembling the look of a pioneer woman), Tudor epitomizes a Yankee lifestyle that will enrapture readers. In fact, Tudor would probably already be a "national living treasure" if our government bestowed the equivalent of Japan's accolade for individuals of outstanding artistic achievement." Booklist, ALA

From the Publisher