Wellfleet Public Library

The Gardener's Mindset

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 delves into his personal gardening journey, pulling trom 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. Alongside gorgeous photographs, Connecting with Nature through Plants and easy projects that range from cultivating a color scheme to building a wildlife habitat, The Gardener's Mindset will delight anyone interested in the analog pleasures of being outdoors.

Stephen Orr is the author of Tomorrow's Garden and The New American Herbal. The former editor-in-chief at Better Homes and Gardens, Orr was previously garden editor at Martha Stewart Living, House & Garden, and Domino magazines, and has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has been a regularly featured gardening expert on The Early Show and Today and lectures extensively around the country. He lives with his husband in Truro and writes a garden column for the Provincetown Independent.