Uprooted

A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again

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Pub Date 22 Sep 2020 | Archive Date 02 Jan 2021

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Description

Uprooted reveals how a late-life uprooting changed Dickey as a gardener.” —The Wall Street Journal

When Page Dickey moved away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill, she left a landscape she had spent thirty-four years making, nurturing, and loving. She found her next chapter in northwestern Connecticut, on 17 acres of rolling fields and woodland around a former Methodist church. In Uprooted, Dickey reflects on this transition and on what it means for a gardener to start again.

In these pages, fol­low her journey: searching for a new home, discovering the ins and outs of the landscape surround­ing her new garden, establishing the garden, and learning how to be a different kind of gardener. The sur­prise at the heart of the book? Although Dickey was sad to leave her beloved garden, she found herself thrilled to begin a new garden in a wilder, larger landscape.
 
Written with humor and elegance, Uprooted is an endearing story about transitions—and the satisfaction and joy that new horizons can bring.

Uprooted reveals how a late-life uprooting changed Dickey as a gardener.” —The Wall Street Journal

When Page Dickey moved away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill, she left a landscape she had...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781604699579
PRICE $30.00 (USD)
PAGES 244

Available on NetGalley

NetGalley Shelf App (PDF)

Average rating from 19 members


Featured Reviews

Enjoyed this book immensely. Motivating, relaxing, and inspiring. I see my own garden more appreciatively after reading. Also jotted down many of the names of the plants the author suggested. Thanks for a wonderful read.

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This was a beautiful book that I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy. I would give this 3.5 stars. If you love gardening this will be right up your alley. I would recommend a hard copy of this book, since the photos are absolutely beautiful. It was beautifully written and was very captivating in the beginning. I could relate to her new house search as I am going through the same process. "It is amazing how sometimes you try to talk yourself into a house because you desperately want to latch onto a home." That was exactly what I needed to hear. You have to find the perfect house for you, nit just any house. This is what she did with Church House. Once they left Duck Hill, they needed to find a perfect house & they did that with Church House. Great story, the hard copy of this book, I'm sure, would be magnificent.

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Please note this is a 3.5.

Gardening means a lot of things to different people, and if it happens to be your niche, then this book will absolutely resonate with you in a lot of ways. It follows the story of the author, who was incredibly attached to her long-time property and garden, and her choice to move (and, in doing so, start anew in respect to the grounds). To lose so much in terms of work, years of effort, and developing plants from the day you planted them is a scary thought, and a terrifying thing to take on! I very much appreciated how much this book took the focus that new doesn't have to mean bad or lacking in beauty, it just means that you have a clean slate to work with, and to sometimes try things that you never had the chance to do before. Even though it was a book about gardening, it hits home in a lot of other ways, and that makes it something special.

The photographs in this book were gorgeous, and absolutely stand-outs in the whole of the narrative. This is the perfect book for the person in your life who loves their garden and pours their heart into it- the author of this book is someone who absolutely understands just how much a garden can make a life.

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An apt metaphor for life in the COVID lane. We’ve been “uprooted” from life as we’ve known it, while the author’s uprooting comes from her own choosing: To leave her home and beloved self-planted garden of 34 years.

Dickey captures the double-edged face of change. We mourn what we’ve lost, yet can be excited by what we gain. The writer finds herself ecstatic as she plans, plants and tends her wilder new garden. She learns to garden differently, and thus inhabit her world in a fresh way.

I only wish for a more vibrant cover. I’m afraid this lovely memoir will be lost among more colorful texts in a library or bookstore. Elegant, wise, funny, and poignant, UPROOTED is highly recommended for readers with or without green thumbs.

5 of 5 Stars

Pub Date 29 Sep 2020

Thanks to Timber Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

#Uprooted #NetGalley

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After almost thirty four years, the author left her celebrated garden "Duck Hill" and moved with her husband to Falls Village, Connecticut. At "Church House", the name they gave their new property, they inherited a garden that had been designed by Nancy McCabe twenty years earlier. The author eloquently relates the pains of leaving a cherished garden and the adventures of discovering a new one. At Church House, the main bones of the garden weres kept intact. After some renovations on their house, their focus shifted to the garden. They added a small greenhouse, built cold frames and created gardens around the pool, planted an orchard and added a cutting garden. They also discovered a woodland bluff where native plants were added and invasive plants fought. Dickey brings to life the rustic nature of the garden, describing favorite plants like viburnum, old shrub roses and hydrangea and the local wildlife and particularly the bird inhabitants. The photographs by Ngoc Minh Ngo and Marion Brenner are beautiful.

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I find hard to express how much I loved this book. Gorgeous pictures and the interesting story of a garden.
It kept me hooked and I wish I could be in the places I saw.
A must read for gardeners, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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This memoir is a bounty for any gardener but especially those in colder climates. Page details her uprooting from her home of many years to be transplanted in upstate CT. I took notes throughout as she detailed her choices of what to plant at the new home to make a restful and beautiful palate of colors that were native and non-invasive.

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Uprooted is a compassionate and intelligent look at the process of leaving behind one home and garden built up over 34 years and moving to another place and making it home. Due out 29th Sept 2020 from Workman Publishing on their Timber Press imprint, it's 244 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This is a plainly and honestly told account of the author and her husband deciding in their 7th and 8th decades to downsize their house and gardens and start over in a new place. She briefly describes their search for a house and the language she used really resonated with me. She spoke of wanting to find a new place so badly "It is amazing how sometimes you try to talk yourself into a house because you desperately want to latch onto a home.". I can definitely relate to that sentiment, having gone through a similar process in the recent past.

She relates their subsequent discovery and purchase of "Church House", their renovations, their relocation, and takover and regeneration of their new gardens. The rest of the book is given over to a discussion of the different areas of their new property, woodland, fen, and meadow, planting an orchard, and siting and building a "small" greenhouse attached to their garage. It's ultimately a story of faith and hope in the future despite setbacks, and as such, it struck me as a powerfully apt metaphor to our current situation with the unrest and pandemic.

Throughout the book are gorgeous, clear, abundant, and well annotated photos of the gardens, features, and varieties they have acquired. It's a warm and engaging story, well told, and I enjoyed it very much. This would make a superlative selection for gardeners, library, makers groups, garden clubs, and the like.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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I am not a gardener, I am a killer of plants.
I don't do it on purpose. It just happens.
During quarantine I did manage to sprout some tiny potatoes, keep my tomato plant alive, and grow a few delightfully tiny sunflowers. But I am not a gardener.

With that said, I still found this memoir to be a quiet, gentle delight, comfortable with it is, a love story to gardening, natural places, and with sacred, personal pockets of history confided throughout. There were many, many moments in reading this where it felt like I was having a conversation with my sweet, detail oriented, gardening mother in law.

As much a photography book as it is a memoir, Uprooted (which I hope will be released as a coffee table book) tells the story of 74 year old Page and her husband, 80 year old Bosco, who have decided to leave their homestead of 34 years to live a simpler life in their old age. Starting with memories of childhood in the garden with the housekeeper, Page details her love for natural things on every page. I felt the intense love she and her husband felt for their old home and the heartbreak they experienced in leaving behind all of the physical reminders of memories and hard work as they moved on.

There is so much detail in this book. Detail about gardening of course, but also about the processes of the day-to-day work the couple do inside and out. I took reading it slowly, and in the moments where I started to feel a bit bogged down by details of things, things I know nothing about, I turned to the the gorgeous pictures. The photographer did a beautiful job showing me the landscapes that Page so loved, and they drew me gently back in when I needed it.

I might not know much about gardening, but I was able to appreciate the thought put into every description and the care that was detailed in growing into the space. The author clearly has a deep reverence for nature, not just within her garden but in the wild spaces surrounding the property. She recognizes the need for each space to have its own voice, and the power of allowing nature to take itself back should the future owners of their home not be able to provide upkeep.

I'll be recommending this book to gardeners, but also to patrons who are looking for books to help slow them down (I get requests for this quite often, actually), and lovers of photography. I don't think it was written for me, but I did truly like it and am glad to have gotten my hands on a copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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I really liked the book! Moving is such a change but it really spoke to me.. home is what were you put your heart to at any time in your life. Loved the pictures! Such colors! Going to see if i can developed my green thumb in my home! Such work on the plants just gives you the idea you have to work for something to grow!

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Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again is Page Dickey's experience of leaving a well established garden and starting again.

Page Dickey is an American writer about gardens, and lived at Duck Hill, creating the gardens there during the 30 odd years she lived there.  She and her husband decide to move, and start again, at Church House, and this the book of her experiences of starting again.

The photos in this book are amazing, and Page Dickey tells you her reasons for things like trying not using weed killer, being aware of invasive species, and the problems with not having a deer fence.  She also describes reasons for putting plants in various places, and why she wanted to have native species of plants in the grounds.

This is a book that you'd enjoy even if you're just dipping your toes in gardening as there's a lot of passion and wisdom in these pages.  And did I mention the beautiful photographs?

 Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again  was published on 22nd September 2020, and is available on  Amazon ,  Waterstones  and your  local independent bookshop .

You can follow Page Dickey on her  website  and  Instagram .

I was given this book in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to  Timber Press .

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3.5/5 - Page Dickey knows a ton about plants, shrubs, and trees, and that comes out in the detail of this beautiful gardening memoir. This book is a detailed look at how Ms. Dickey plans and transforms the landscape and gardens at her new home at Church House in Connecticut after moving from her beloved home at Duck Hill in Upstate New York.

This book is filled with really lovely photography, showing different places in and around Church House. All of the photos are really stunning and, honestly, they make me want to spend a lot more time outside.

I will say that I had hoped for a little more of the emotional aspect of starting over in a new home after leaving one you had lived in for many years. I wanted to feel some of what Ms. Dickey and her husband felt in making their big decision to relocate and then in making their new home comfortable for them. Ms. Dickey didn't really write that sort of thing in this book. Rather, this book is mostly the author sharing details about her new garden: thoughts about what she planted, where she planted it, and why. I would say that the folks that will love this the most are the probably the ones that have a pretty good base of knowledge about horticultural things and landscape design.



Many thanks to Timber Press for providing a digital copy of this book via NetGalley for my review. These thoughts are my own!

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I love the cover art for this book and how simple but still full of meaning it is. The single plant echoes the idea of a single person, making this such an artsy but beautiful book cover. Along with this, the inside photography is stunning and adds another layer to this book and its beauty and power. I love the power and meaning tucked in this book and the emphasis on the connection between person lives, environment, and how we see and experience nature around us.

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“Uprooted” is a love letter, an ode to gardening, and a lesson in the amazing resilience of plants. This was a surprisingly tender account of the labor and thought that goes into gardening. The excitement of starting over, the sadness of leaving things behind, the metaphors for life were woven throughout. An enjoyable read, inspiring and not preachy.

**I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

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I really enjoyed reading this book. Despite leaving her beloved home and garden she is also excited to start over in a new house and new garden. Along with the text there are lots of wonderful photographs. This is a beautiful book. Gardeners will love this story. Enjoy

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