PotsandPlots

My father was a gardener. Now he is a garden. (Opening line of Death and the Gardener

I don’t read many books about death, or indeed books about gardens, but I very much wanted to read this one. My dad was a gardener, and he, too, is now a garden.

Death and the Gardener is a beautiful meditation on the end, of lives lived, and the curious cycle of death and rebirth that is the life of a garden.

Growing Information:

Plant With: Death of a parent, Life with a parent, gardening..

Grows Into: A poignant examination of a life lived and the pastoral beauty of gardening.

Rating: Hardy Perennial🌻🌻🌻 (Check here for rating information.). There are many beautiful passages in this book that make it perfect from returning to and finding comfort in.

Available now in paperback. (Affiliate link)

The Review:

Death and The Gardener is a beautiful meditation on life and death. Reflected through a son’s love for his father, and his father’s love of family and his garden.

This book won’t be to everybody’s taste. It’s a personal autobiography of the author and his relationship with his father. It meanders through time while bringing a thoughtful analysis to finding the meaning of life after the loss of a close relative.

If you’re looking for a deep connection between life and gardening, it’s not really there. Indeed, gardens are barely mentioned until about halfway through the book. It is only once his father passes away, and the author discovers a gardening journal, that we see how the garden and the shifting of the seasons contribute to the making of the man.

One of the central themes of the latter part of the book is how gardens, though ever-shifting, continue beyond the people who create and care for them.

This gave rise to the somewhat melancholy thought that in private gardens we are at the mercy of whoever takes our place. Thanks to modern conveniences such as Right Move and Google Streetview, I know that at my previous garden and two of my dad’s lovingly nurtured gardens have been torn up and replaced with (in my opinion) something lesser. The comfort that something of my dad lives on has been overwritten.

So, I have to look at my current garden, which is filled with many plants and ideas inherited from my father, to see that his legacy continues. Yet, I know one day, I too will move on, and that my children might see my garden as part of me, and in small amounts, part of their grandad. Whoever follows will undoubtedly lift and remove the many years of work, and my labours will be erased.

All of that, though, is not really a review of the book, which is something quite special. Unlike Time Shelter, which I enjoyed but often found hard to penetrate, Death And The Gardener is effortless reading. It charts the rapid decline of Gospodinov’s father after a cancer diagnosis, but it also celebrates a life well lived and offers an insight into communist era Bulgaria.

Unsurprisingly, this is not a cheery read, but it is not a depressing one either. It has moments of humour and, above all, is suffused with warmth. Death and the Gardener is reflective, moving, and – for all you gardeners out there – will definitely have you considering your legacy.

This is book to keep, to take down, read a few paragraphs and take consolation from it’s beauty.