The Gardener's Mindset: A Gardening Book

From Stephen Orr, the former editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens, comes a collection of essays and photographs that examines the restorative power of gardening, while revealing his own challenges in the garden and offering advice on growing plants and vegetables at home.

The road to great gardening is littered with dead plants.

Stephen Orr has written about gardening for most of his decades-long career, and now, in The Gardener’s Mindset, he helps readers to understand not just how to garden but how to think about it. Inspired by the great tradition of twentieth-century garden essay collections by writers such as Vita Sackville-West, Elizabeth Lawrence, and Henry Mitchell, Orr brings his musings and practical advice to gardeners everywhere, no matter their skill level.

Alongside gorgeous photographs and easy projects that range from cultivating a color scheme to building a wildlife habitat, Orr delves into his personal gardening journey, pulling from the various gardens he and his husband created over the past decades. He remembers his first garden on a New York City rooftop, where he followed beginner’s instinct to rearrange endlessly pots of old roses, herbs, perennials, and even trees. Later in Des Moines, the challenge of growing anything interesting in his shade-filled backyard led Orr to discover the beautiful patterns and colors of leafy lungworts and epimediums. And he shares how his current garden in Cape Cod is a work in progress and serves as his trial-and-error lab, where he is learning how to cultivate plants that can stay resilient in the face of dry sandy soil, dramatic coastal storms, and climate change.

These pages capture the emotional sense of well-being that gardeners experience when digging in the dirt: connecting with nature while entering a state of creative flow. Orr’s distinct sense of wit and wisdom on every page lends the impression of having him by your side while on a personal garden tour. Whether kept on the nightstand as inspiration for the growing season or given as a gift, The Gardener’s Mindset will delight anyone interested in the analog pleasures of being outdoors.