An Ecology of Enchantment: A Year in a Country Gar

In Crazy About Gardening, Des Kennedy led happy readers down the garden path with a series of wisely funny essays on the wonderful idiosyncrasies of gardening and gardeners. In An Ecology of Enchantment, Des swings open his own garden gate once again to reflect on The natural rhythms and rumblings of a country garden.

The book captures the seasonal rhythms of his remarkable natural garden on BC's beautiful Denman Island. The 52 sections follow the seasonal cycle week by week, beginning in winter dormancy, awakening to new life in spring, swelling into the lushness of summer, then gradually declining into melancholy, mold, and memories with the season of dying-away.

Des despairs about broken trees and shrubs damaged by a massive snowstorm, then immediately discovers a silver lining, using the storm as a convenient cover-up for years of inadequate tree pruning. "A killer snowstorm every once in a while is a real boon to bad pruners", he enthuses. He talks about enjoying the stoneworks in his garden and his own "romance with the stone". "It's no mystery to veteran stone croppers how the great pyramids were put together, or Stonehenge, or all the rest, not with several thousand dullards like myself all juiced on testosterone for the moving of stone". Sniffing about the current vogue for gardening fashion statements he writes: "here the whole idea seems to be not so much that one actually gets out there and mucks around doing dirty work but rather that one is fashionably attired in such a way as to suggest that brute physical labor is altogether possible". Despite his witty self-deprecation. Des Kennedy also sees the profound beauty and practical truths that nature provides, his astuteobservations and intelligent, literary musings offering us a pathway into a rich and romantic garden delight.