Product Description

Through the Garden Gate is a collection of 144 of the popular weekly articles that Elizabeth Lawrence wrote for The Charlotte Observer from 1957 to 1971. With those columns, a delightful blend of gardening lore, horticultural expertise, and personal adventures, Lawrence inspired thousands of southern gardeners.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1084676 in Books
• Published on: 1990-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 270 pages

From Library Journal
This excellent collection of essays gives us another chance to read Lawrence, whose work is endlessly rewarding. They make us envy those for whom she was a weekly columnist--readers of the Charlotte Observer , in which these pieces appeared between 1957 and 1971. The idea for this collection was born when her friend Bill Neal discovered some of these old newspapers. The essays are arranged by month, and an index provides a guide to specific plant information. Lawrence was a fine writer and horticulturist, and the books she published during her lifetime--her last being Gardens of Love ( LJ 5/15/87)--are already classics. This new collection of her work is welcome, indeed.
- Deci Lowry, Chappaqua, N.Y.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
[A] fine contribution to the green-thumb genre.

Publishers Weekly

This collection is a treasure.

ALA Booklist

Lawrence is always inspiring. . . . both in the joy of gardening and more practical matters.

Penelope Hobhouse, author of Garden Style

I have learned more about horticulture, plants, and garden history and literature from Elizabeth Lawrence than from any other . . . person.

Katharine S. White in Onward and Upward in the Garden

About the Author
The late Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-85) was the first woman to receive a degree in landscape architecture from the North Carolina State College School of Design. Her own legendary gardens in Raleigh and Charlotte provided the background for her books and columns.

The late Bill Neal, a chef, author, and master gardener, was a friend of Elizabeth Lawrence.

Customer Reviews

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
Miss Lawrence says, "Dill is a hardy annual. The seeds can be sown in fall or early spring. The seedlings must be thinned, and Mrs. Clarkson says she saves every scrap that is pulled up. She uses them in potato salad, and sprinkles them over broiled lamb."

Miss Lawrence has distilled much of her gardening and some of her cooking knowledge into this lovely little book (about 250 pages). Ideas abound from sources such as old wives tales, myths, stories, poetry, and the miscellaneous information passed along to Miss Lawrence from her correspondents, friends, and readers. Reading this text is like sitting at a wise woman's knee and listening to her tell about past times.

Will it rain on Saint Swithin's Day (July 15th) as it did in 971 A.D when his body was transferred from a forgotten grave to the Cathedral for a proper burial? Were the Chinese, who considered the frog the lord of waters onto something, "Send soon O frog the jewel of water."

But my favorite writing is the poetry she intersperses into the text -- "A bank where the wild thyme blows, Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows, Quite over canopied with lucious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." Planted any eglantine lately..?