In this book the author describes the way her garden evolved & how without meaning to do so she let it take over her life She suggests moving away from planning regimentation & gardening with the mentality of a stamp-collector Frequently funny & always stimulating she writes of the alchemy of gardens of the 19th-century plant-collectors & plant illustrators & of the gardening philosophers all fertilizing great thoughts along with their hollyhocks She won the 1988 Sinclair Consumer Press Garden Writer of the Year Award