The Garden in Every Sense and Season

Martin encourages readers to stop and smell the roses, literally, while they are gardening. If, like me, you live in an area where spring and summer are all to short, you’re racing to get the garden prepared, planted, weeded, fed and finally harvested. Martin invites readers to stop and savor the seasons and the rituals of gardening in this gorgeous book. Divided into seasons, the author encourages celebrating the everyday wonders of nature that unfold around us, 365 days a year. Beautiful photos and inspiring words make this a must have for every gardener

The Garden in Every Sense and Season by Tovah Martin, photographs by Kindra Clineff

Gardeners looking for inspiration in the form of color photos will not be disappointed here. Martin focuses on each of the five senses as she moves through the four seasons, picking out favorite plants and parts of the garden (including earth and creatures) for each combination. She tells this story from her own first-person perspective with a cordial, friendly tone, which really draws you through and makes you want to find out what she’ll focus on next. She even finds things to appreciated during an East Coast winter!

full disclosure: reviewed from a NetGalley digital copy

4.5 Stars

Please note that the review name of this book was The Garden in Every Sense and Season and that Finding Joy in Every Season is a more accurate way of conveying this lovely book's message.

If you are a person who plans everything and who makes lists of things to do, like I am, sometimes it's hard to remember to stop and smell the roses. Tovah Martin is talking to us here, about just that- about taking the time to really see, smell, revel in, the seasonal changes in our gardens. To enjoy those moments of stillness in winter (ever listened for the sound of cracking when it's super cold? The slow drip of ice off branches?), the first pale yellow tinged green of spring shoots emerging from branches, crocuses and snowdrops peeping above the melting snow on the ground, and so on, throughout the seasons until the very last leaf drops from a tree, signaling the start of winter.

This is a beautiful book that you can enjoy whether you are a lifelong gardener or a beginning one.

Invitation to immerse in your garden with all your senses:


Do not expect to be inspired to spend more time in your garden by reading a practical gardening guide with complete seasonal chore lists for your flower or vegetable garden. Instead, be prepared to delight your senses when you pick up The Garden in Every Season. In her book, Tovah Martin describes what is going on in her personal garden during the course of the year. She talks about the colors of flowers and foliage, intoxicating floral scents, the songs of birds, and the feel of moss under your feet. Together with high quality photographs of her garden landscape, close ups of individual plants, and sometimes her goats, it is not difficult for me as a reader to imagine being in that garden and taking in all these impressions of the different seasons. Personally, I am drawn to beautiful scents. I enjoy Tovah's writing about scents in her garden, like the scents of lilacs, flowering tobacco and the night blooming jasmine, as well as the Freesias which bloom on her window sill in winter. What is exciting for me is the fact, that in addition to well known plants Tovah names scented plants that I have not heard about before. She also shares which specific plants to buy for the best scent experience. I rate this book with 5 stars because I now want to learn about the plants Tovah describes and it inspires me to spend more time in my own garden.

I love gardening, and love reading, this book combines both.

Walking through the garden in all four seasons using our five senses, this book takes you on that journey with many colour photographs.

Gardeners looking for inspiration need look no further. This book really does make you appreciate all the hidden things in the garden.

It's so poetic, beautiful The Garden in Every Sense and Season by Tovah Martin because the writer and gardener wants to invite you to enjoy your garden during the various seasons of the year. In these important, sweet, tender, acute essays about Martin's garden, descriptions of flowers, starting from daffodils and later lilac during spring and various changes that every season does slowly slowly analyzed with great cure and love.
Seasons are extremely important for nature, plants, flowers.
Nature is real perfection and you will discover it while you will read this book. Spring is the joy of re-born and it brings enthusiasm, strong colors, smells, vivacity of life. Summer is intensity, maturity ready to bloom, but also fall and winter will be rich of surprises.
Each section, spring, summer, fall and winter divided in: Sight, Smell, Sound, Touch, Taste.

Wonderful!

The book will be released on April 4th.

I thank NetGalley and Timber Press for this beautiful eBook.

The Garden in Every Sense and Season is a beautiful book to either read in its entirety from beginning to end or to browse through and pick sections that catch your interest in the present moment. Choose the current season and prepare to be inspired!

It is an invitation to experience your garden, or for that matter any garden you may visit, through all your senses in each and every season. The photographs alone made me feel relaxed.

The author lives in Connecticut, New England but the delight to be obtained by simply enjoying your garden may be equally felt wherever you live.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a digital review copy.

Tovah reminds you that flowers, your garden and the wildlife are not just for looking at, rushing past, quicky weeding by, instead she focuses on the five senses touch, sight, sound, smell and taste and explores each one of these for each of the seasons.  It all about relaxing, appreciating, enjoying and exploring what we have in out gardens.

She has a very natural way of explaining colour companions and foliage with structure.  Building a garden no matter what size takes planning and preparation, but there is no check list and must do in this book, taking the pressure of planting and setting at set times.  Instead, Stop, Slow Down, Relax and Enjoy.  It is a more relaxed approach and Tovah's approach to life seems to come through in her approach to gardening and plants.

This is a refreshing look at gardening today.  It should be a pastime or a hobby not a job.  I found that even though I am a UK gardener, mainly of vegetables, there were lots of things that were relevant and useful.  It is good to see another persons thoughts and perspectives.

This is a beautifully laid out book with stunning photographs.  I have read this on a PC, but I know if I had the physical book in my hands I would be dipping in and out of it often.  The writing is set out more as a story of a journey through the year of a garden, rather than a book about a garden.

This is a book I would definitely recommend.  I really loved it.  The photographs and words compliment each other beautifully.

The Garden in every Sense and Season is a wonderful journey that delights all of your senses. This book is written with such enthusiasm for nature and the great outdoors that the words transport you off the page. I can practically smell the blossoms as Tovah Martin describes them in her eloquently inspired words. An excellent read especially in the winter months to cheer up the soul in anticipation of the coming spring ahead.

The photos in this book alone make for a great purchase. Filled with lots of great garden information and ideas, this makes a perfect gift for gardeners from beginners to experts.

This book is definitely for the probably small population of people that love both gardening and being outdoors and reading. I went into this book expecting it to be more of a coffee table book - pleasant with lots of beautiful photographs of the author's garden. Instead, it was the author's essays about each season in her garden in relation to the five senses. Her passion for gardening was almost tangible through her words, and I appreciate that. I would definitely recommend it to a patron who absolutely loved gardening, but if someone is looking for pictures or information, this is not the book for them.

Tovah Martin sets the scene for The Garden in Every Sense and Season with this opening statement "I have learned that unless you consciously experience your garden, you might be blind to its beauty. And if you don't listen, it will remain mute." She spends the book teaching the reader amazing things about our gardens, things we can experience with no more than observation.

Broken into each season, she describes beautifully how each of the five senses takes them in. For example: "Spring is no season for the faint of heart, on any level. It bursts. It throbs. It reverberates with the affirmation of life. It's all about purposeful excess. If we're going to have a growing season, spring has to hit the ground running. So it makes perfect sense that yellow predominates in spring." and "True blue isn't often found in the garden. In the natural realm, cobalt blossoms are scarce. Instead, we usually get purples and mauves. But not in spring. This is the season when all the azure, indigo, cerulean, and sailor shades come out of the closet."

It is jam-packed full of gardening wisdom, so much I couldn't include all of my favourite lines, they are too numerous! I loved every minute of this book and spent time digesting each segment and going out and experiencing my own garden afresh. Here are five of my favourites:

"The intensity of their fragrance is affects by whether you grow your daffodils in full sun or partial shade. The soil in which your daffodils are anchored can also make a difference. Even the temperatures can affect how much aroma each flower pumps out. Those inputs often sway scent and its production. Just like we are what we eat, flowers are the sum total of their incoming data. So visit lots of daffodils at all times of day, and be inquisitive."

"But when working with nature, chilling out leads to incredible collaborations. You have to leave openings to let the unexpected happen...The foxgloves went wild long ago, much to everyone's delight. Again, that began intentionally with some foxglove purchases, but seedlings took the invitation and ran with it into all the right places."

"Any garden is best framed by some sky. For those of us with fanatical collecting tendencies, this becomes critical. You need some opportunities to catch your breath in a garden. Pathways and brief expanses of lawn or stonework help to define negative space, but if all else fails, the sky can form a border. Factor it in when you're designing a garden. Think about it when you're pruning up trees and shrubs. Send the eye up there and let it dwell on silhouettes. Reflect the azure breathing space down to your feet with shallow pools, rills and ponds."

"Dragonflies and damselflies do a whole different zoom. They sound like little sports cards revving their engines as they dart around. They need a nearby body of water (my swampy pond is their ideal) in which to rear a family. Preferably, it should have shelves of soil and upright aquatic plants standing along the edges for egg-laying and resting purposes. And another plus is that dragonflies and damselflies consume quantities of mosquitoes. Meanwhile, these helicopter impersonators are a riot to watch."

"A straightforward grassy path sends a walk-this-way message for a quit gait. Stepping stones would slow the pace."

The book is also full of beautiful imagery - I just love the goats, they have big characters!

Wrapping up, Tovah concludes "This book is about how you come to link with you lands on all levels, however you can make that happen. It is very individual, it is very deep, and it can mean the world." I highly recommend this book, it is by far the best gardening book I've read. Five out of five, I'd give more if I could! If you love poetic descriptions and gardens, read it now!

From the back cover:
So much of gardening is focused on the monthly checklists, seasonal to-do lists, and daily upkeep—weed this area, plant these seeds, prune this tree, rake these leaves, dig this hole—frantically done all year long. But what about taking the time to truly enjoy the garden in every sense? In The Garden in Every Sense and Season does just that. Beginning the heady blooms of spring and closing with putting the garden to bed in winter, Tovah Martin mindfully explores her garden through sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. She sees the bright yellow daffodils of spring, smells summer’s pungent roses, hears the crows in autumn, and tastes winter’s juicy citrus. In 100 evocative essays, Martin shares sage garden advice and intimate reflections on her own garden. The Garden in Every Sense and Season, from one of the greatest garden writers of our time, urges gardeners to inhale, savor, and become more attuned with their gardens.

With thanks to NetGalley and Timber Press for this advanced copy

Thanks to NetGalley and Timber Press for the opportunity to read and review The Garden in Every Sense and Season by Tovah Martin. This gardening book is separated into the four seasons with each season further categorized into the five senses. Beautiful photos of all types of plants, weather, some birds and even a cat are included for this journey of the senses throughout the year. Advice and wisdom is bestowed upon the reader by the knowledgeable author regarding asparagus, kale, wild grapes and even winter’s frost. A relaxing, enjoyable read for garden inspiration, 5 stars!

I'm never going to love weeding, but I dislike it less after reading this book. It has a poetic sense of mindfulness that encourages me to stop and enjoy what IS, rather than thinking about everything else I have to do that day or over-focusing on the negative (weeds). Appreciate the warm sunlight, green scents, floral scents, earth scents, palettes of colors (brighter in certain seasons, but beautiful even in winter), textures or earth and greenery, and sounds of birds and breezes.

I bought my own copy because the PDF would not load. This is a beautifully done gardening book as no other. This book is a delight to all your senses. The author encourages the reader to fully enjoy nature, take in scent, color and texture of the garden. The flower education here is invaluable. I learned so much from the author and I have been gardening for years. Since reading this book i can honestly say that I enjoy my garden more and am more interested in different plantings this season. This is a feast for the senses.
Thank you to the publisher for the PDF. It would not load but I was interested so I purchased my own copy and am so glad I did. This is a gardening book to use every season . Its delightful and beautifully done!

Tovah Martin writes a lot of gardening books. I own many of them, and I really enjoy her down-to-earth, knowledgeable, and encouraging perspective. This book is a little different from others she's written. It reads more like a long journal entry, maybe even like a love letter to her garden. It asks the reader to stop working the earth like a mad-person and try to peacefully observe and enjoy it sometimes. I like when Martin says in the intro, that she's made senseless mistakes in her garden because of numbness and overwhelm. "This," she says, "is the frantic response of the frenetic gardener." Instead, the goal should be not just to work hard, cultivate, tame, but also to truly love and appreciate the fruits of your labor. It's a nice message---a peaceful and relaxing message. After finishing the book, I definitely wanted to slow down and simply exist in my outdoor space for a bit.

The book is divided into four main sections:  Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. And each of those sections is divided into five subsections:  sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. There are some beautiful photos in here, but they aren't the main focus---the "chill out" message is.

Though I think just about anyone can get something from this book, it's going to be more fun to read if you have some general gardening experience and plant knowledge under your belt. It wouldn't have been nearly as interesting for me if I hadn't already been familiar with what most of these plants look like, as well as how they grow and when. Overall, though, this is a mellow and inspirational book. I enjoyed reading it.