A Home in Bloom by Christie Purifoy
As Heard on The Daily Gardener Podcast:
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
A Home in Bloom by Christie Purifoy
This book came out in April 2023, and the subtitle is Four Enchanted Seasons with Flowers.
My dear garden friends, I simply must tell you about a book that feels like a warm cup of tea on an autumn afternoon.
Christie Purifoy, writing from her Victorian farmhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania, has crafted what I can only describe as a love letter to the way gardens transform houses into homes.
What makes this book particularly special is how Purifoy begins her garden year in autumn - yes, autumn! - understanding that endings are really beginnings in the garden. She invites us into her world with this enchanting passage:
Why begin a garden book in autumn?
Why begin when evenings are drawing in and the trees are going bare?
Spring is surely the more obvious choice...
And yet the growth of a garden, like the progress of a year, is circular. We can touch it almost anywhere and find both beginning and end.
Even a single seed tipped out from a paper packet is both a beginning and an end; it is the very first stage of a new plant and the final offering of a vanished fruit.
But what truly captured my heart was her perspective on how gardens make our homes come alive. Listen to this beautiful reflection:
If the whole earth is a garden, then our homes are also gardens within a garden.
Yet we are used to thinking of a garden as an accessory to a house. It is a bonus. An extra. It is "curb appeal."
But gardens are much more than backdrops. They are much more than pretty pictures.
Gardens are where our food comes from. Gardens are where beauty grows. Gardens are shelter. Gardens are also sacred spaces for private prayer and community celebration.
The book follows the rhythm of seasons, offering not just inspiration but practical projects for each time of year.
From planting bulbs in autumn containers to creating floral ice cubes in summer, Purifoy shows us how to weave the garden's magic into every corner of our homes.
This book is 208 pages of pure garden enchantment.
SI HORTUM IN HORTORIA PODCASTA IN BIBLIOTEHCA HABES, NIHIL DEERIT.