Onward and Upward in the Garden

by Katharine S. White

This gardening book is a compilation of articles originally written as a column for The New Yorker magazine. It took me by surprise. The individual essays are not actually about gardening per se, but are for the most part, reviews of seed catalogs. I have done this once myself, so I was a bit intrigued. It turns out Mrs. White is quite opinionated about gardening and the development of new plant varieties- especially how showier flowers and bigger produce seem to be all the seedsmen are aiming for- at least that was her take on it. She disparages a lot of trends in the seed catalogs, which makes for some amusing reading. Here and there she mentions her own experiences with certain plants, which were the parts I really enjoyed. She doesn't just talk about plants, though. She criticizes (or praises where it was merited) the paper quality, choice of typography and clarity of photos in the seed catalogs. Later in the book are a few reviews of different types of publications regarding plants- field guides to wildflowers and oversized gardening books meant to be decorative (I call them "coffee table" books). I admit I was totally uninterested in the two chapters about books on formal flower arranging, styles in flower arrangement, and flower shows. I kind of skimmed through that. I puzzled a bit at how often she made a point of telling which supplier had what particular variety of a species, until I recalled the publication date: there was no internet back then. You couldn't just do a search and find where to buy the rose your grandmother used to grow or anything. So of course she made notes on which seeds suppliers grew, developed and sold what particular strains of plants. Specializing in roses, or azaleas, or herbs, etc. Helpfully, in the back of the book is a listing of all the catalogs and suppliers mentioned, with brief notes if they are still in business or have changed their focus. Only the last two chapters review gardening books of the kind I like to read- and here I did note down a few titles that sound particularly good. And on a different note, the introduction is written by her husband, a lovely portrait of Mrs. White and some of her gardening habits.

Rating: 3/5         362 pages, 1958