Emily Dickinson’s Gardens by Marta McDowell
As Heard on The Daily Gardener Podcast:
Emily Dickinson's Gardens by Marta McDowell
Before Marta’s latest book on Emily Dickinson (2019), she wrote this book back in 2004. Both books reveal Emily Dickinson's passion for gardening.
Most people think of Emily as a poet or writer; they don't think of her as a gardener. But Marta likes to remind us that Emily Dickinson was a gardener and grew up in a family of gardeners.
Emily regularly sent bouquets to friends and often slipped little flowers into envelopes alongside the nearly 1,000 letters she wrote to her friends and family.
This first book of Marta’s is a sentimental favorite of mine.
And I love that the book is arranged by season.
Marta shares the final years of Emily's life in the Winter section. Indeed, Emily's last years of life were a veritable winter of loss. She lost both of her parents, and she referred to her family home as the House of Snow.
Emily's words offer a glimpse into her grief,
“I wish, until I tremble, to touch the ones I love before the hills are red, gray, white, and ‘born again’!
If we knew how deep the crocus lay, we never should let her go!”
SI HORTUM IN HORTORIA PODCASTA IN BIBLIOTEHCA HABES, NIHIL DEERIT.
"If you have a garden, a garden podcast, and a library,
you have everything you need."
Related posts:
Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life by Marta McDowell
January 10, 2020 Charlotte Moss Winter Garden, Elm Tree Comeback, Nicholas Culpeper, Indian Tea, Henry Winthrop Sargent, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson’s Gardens by Marta McDowell, Back to the Roots Organic Mushroom Kit, and the Wolf Moon
November 18, 2019 The National Trust Cover Photo, The Feminine History of Botany, William Shenstone, Leo Lesquereux, Asa Gray, Kim Wilde, Margaret Atwood, Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life by Marta McDowell, Boot Tray reboot and Cranberry Frenzy in 1843
The Gardens of Emily Dickinson by Judith Farr