A Garden of Marvels by Ruth Kassinger
As Heard on The Daily Gardener Podcast:
A Garden of Marvels by Ruth Kassinger
The subtitle to this book is How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants.
This book came out in April of 2015.
Ruth Kassinger didn’t always have a green thumb.
In this book, she tells you that until she completely understood how plants actually worked, she couldn't know precisely what they needed.
Her story starts this way,
“This book was born of a murder, a murder I committed.”
The victim - it turns out to be a beloved kumquat tree.
Ruth had decided to prune it. But her efforts made the tree turn brittle and brown.
And that made her wonder:
Why did the kumquat die when a rose bush and a crepe myrtle pruned the same way and both thrived?
The dilemma made Ruth begin a quest to understand more about plant physiology.
This book is part memoir and part science class.
Ruth writes with a friendly voice. This book is a beautiful way to learn basic botany—the marvel of flowers, roots, stems, and leaves.
While learning botany from Ruth, we also learn from her personal stories.
Initially, Ruth made familiar mistakes: over-watering, under-fertilizing, and making untrue assumptions about what plants need.
Ultimately, Ruth became a better gardener by understanding plants on a deeper level.
SI HORTUM IN HORTORIA PODCASTA IN BIBLIOTEHCA HABES, NIHIL DEERIT.
