Paula Deitz has delighted readers for more than thirty years with her
vivid descriptions of both famous and hidden landscapes. Her writings
allow readers to share in the experience of her extensive travels, from
the waterways of Britain's Castle Howard to the Japanese gardens of
Kyoto, and home again to New York City's Central Park. Collected for the
first time, the essays in Of Gardens record her great adventure of
continual discovery, not only of the artful beauty of individual gardens
but also of the intellectual and historical threads that weave them into
patterns of civilization, from the modest garden for family subsistence
to major urban developments. Deitz's essays describe how people, over
many centuries and in many lands, have expressed their originality by
devoting themselves to cultivation and conservation.
During a visit to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor,
Maine, Deitz first came to appreciate the notion that landscape
architecture can be as intricately conceived as any major structure and
is, indeed, the means by which we redeem the natural environment through
design. Years later, as she wandered through the gardens of Versailles,
she realized that because gardens give structure without confinement,
they encourage a liberation of movement and thought. In Of Gardens, we
follow Deitz down paths of revelation, viewing A Bouquet of British
Parks: Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London; the parks and promenades of
Jerusalem; the Moonlight Garden of the Taj Mahal; a Tuscan-style villa
in southern California; and the rooftop garden at Tokyo's Mori Center,
among many other sites.
Deitz covers individual landscape architects and designers, including
André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand, Russell Page,
and Michael Van Valkenburgh. She then features an array of parks, public
places, and gardens before turning her attention to the burgeoning
business of flower shows. The volume concludes with a memorable poetic
epilogue entitled A Winter Garden of Yellow.
