Books about gardens and gardening range from instructional manuals to narrative works spotlighting our emotional connections with plants and planting. While there is definitely a place for how-to garden books, these are not the volumes I reach for when I’m looking for inspiration or want to think more deeply about why and how we grow.
Gardens can be places of liberation, queer expression and political defiance as well as of simple beauty and peace. When I was writing Grounding I turned to writers whose work explored these aspects of gardening and our relationship with the natural world. Their books illuminate our colonial past, unpick ideas of belonging and home and describe the ways the small act of nurturing a plant or patch of land can change the world for the better.
