|
 |
Tovah Martin
|
|
Tovah Martin is an award-winning writer, gardener, and photographer. The gardening editor for Victoria magazine, she writes for many other publications as well. She lives in Roxbury, Connecticut. |
|
Tasha Tudor's poignant art has fascinated adults and children for decades. Her nineteenth-century New England lifestyle is legendary. Gardeners are especially intrigued by the profusion of antique flowers--spectacular poppies, six-foot foxgloves, and intoxicating peonies--in the cottage gardens surrounding her hand-hewn house. Until now we've only caught glimpses of Tasha Tudor's landscape. In this gorgeous book, two of her friends, the garden writer Tovah Martin and the photographer Richard Brown, take us into the magical garden and then behind the scenes. As we revel in the bedlam of Johnny-jump-ups and cinnamon pinks, the intricacy of the formal peony garden, and the volumptuousness of her heirloom roses, we also learn Tasha's gardening secrets. How does she coax forth her finicky camellia blossoms in the dead of a Vermont winter? How does she train that fantastic topiary to model for her artwork? How can she keep her crown imperials from tumbling in the winds? Tasha's garden reflects a wealth of family lore, perfected through the years and years of working the soil. We may be dazzled by the beauty of the garden, but we come away from this book with practical ideas about improving our own plots of land. "Paradise on earth" is how Tasha describes her garden, and along with the flowers and the vegetables that provide her food, her paradise is filled with an enchanting menagerie--corgies, Nubian goats, cats, chickens, fantail doves, and forty or more exotic finches, cockatiels, canaries, nightingales, and parrots, which inhabit her collection of antique cages. Tasha's beautiful watercolors and her enchanting anecdotes color this sublimely beautiful book.
|
|
|
In this magical sequel to Tasha Tudor's Garden, author Tovah Martin and photographer Richard W. Brown revisit Corgi Cottage, this time taking us inside to watch Tasha create the handmade items that are an integral part of her legendary nineteenth-century lifestyle. Whether Tasha is crocheting a piece of lace to edge her petticoat, sewing a dress copied from an 1830s pattern, knitting intricately patterned mittens and socks, or working on a quilt, her hands are never idle. For this book, she has created a series of new paintings in the style that has made her one of America's best-loved children's book illustrators.
|
|
|
If it sometimes seems that gardening is all work and no play, here's the book that will turn that canard on its head. Garden Whimsy is an entertaining look at the lighter side of gardening--a refreshing change from how-to books on composting and double-digging. When author Tovah Martin lectures, her talk on garden whimsy is the one her audiences like best. This book brings her marvelous stories, illustrated by Richard Brown's stunning photographs, to the wider audience that has come to appreciate this talented team.
So what is whimsy, botanically speaking? It may be as subtle as an inscription on a sundial or as noticeable as a child-size lighthouse. Birdhouses and scarecrows are favorite subjects, and so are topiary animals, capricious gates, and fences topped with the gardener's collection of blackbirds, kitchen utensils, or gardening gloves. It is eccentric, askew--in short, whatever strikes a witty gardener's fancy. Best of all, it will inspire the reader to go and do likewise.
|
|
|
