The Accidental Garden (eBook)

Mabey is a national treasure

Masterly ... This new work by the ever-marvellous Mabey exhorts us to pay our dues to the other inhabitants of our gardens accordingly

A crusade in defence of a natural world under threat ... Mabey's powers of nature observation, and his gift for translating them into words has made [his work] both celebrated and timeless

An enchanting, meditative account of a garden and its lives

Eloquently and succinctly written by an enlightened ecologist ... a celebration of the garden, its meaning to us as humans, our memories, our long lives, what we can leave for future generations ... poetic and important

A superb stylist with profound tenderness and compassion towards the more-than-human world

A calming reflection on the enduring resilience of nature ... a discursive, philosophical memoir about everything from the human desire to shape nature to what Mabey calls the ambiguous experience of gardening in the midst of an environmental emergency

This is the elder statesman of nature writing whose books have led to a wellspring of environmental literature that is able to be at once intimate, investigative, scientific and beautiful. As he rummages around this pocket of nature that has come under his charge, Mabey constantly but calmly telegraphs the wider and wilder themes playing out beyond the boundary. The writing style - silky, flab-free, bright - remains irresistible throughout this slim volume.

Mabey is the kind of person you wish you had with you on every country walk, identifying, explaining, drawing on deep knowledge lightly worn

Our greatest nature writer

This is part memoir, part naturescape and part gardening book. ... there is also something much rarer in this book: wisdom. What a treat

An advocate for a new non-domineering understanding of the relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world

Part memoir, part journal, part treatise ... this slim book captures it all. A thoughtful, lingering read

Absolutely enchanting ... With wisdom, wit, erudition and modesty, Mabey explores the edgeland between cultivation and wildness

We are lucky to have [Richard Mabey]. He has changed the way we are with plants and made a loved world lovelier still

As in all his work, what comes across is [Mabey's] abiding passion for plants and the sustenance they give both imaginatively and spiritually ... with the confident affection of someone discussing old friends

Encourages us to think less of conquering the landscape and more of sharing it with the myriad creatures and organisms that treat our lawns and beds as home