Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden

“Ackerman has done it again … one of the most buoyant and enjoyable garden reads … uplifting, intelligent.” — Boston Globe

In the mode of her bestseller A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman celebrates the sensory pleasures of her garden through the seasons.

Whether she is deadheading flowers or glorying in the profusion of roses, offering sugar water to a hummingbird or studying the slug, she welcomes the unexpected drama and extravagance as well as the sanctuary her garden offers.

Written in sensuous, lyrical prose, Cultivating Delight is a hymn to nature and to the pleasure we take in it.

In the mode of her bestseller A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman celebrates the sensory pleasures of her garden through the seasons. Whether she is deadheading flowers or glorying in the profusion of roses, offering sugar water to a hummingbird or studying the slug, she welcomes the unexpected drama and extravagance as well as the sanctuary her garden offers.

Written in sensuous, lyrical prose, Cultivating Delight is a hymn to nature and to the pleasure we take in it.

"Lyrical, knowledgeable and imaginative." - Booklist

“Diane Ackerman takes us down the garden path with a renewed sense of awe …[and] enlightened eyes.” - Los Angeles Times

“Ackerman’s rich prose is a bridge to a world of discovery.” - Nature

Understated elegance lush language, historical and scientific nuggets, artful digressions and apt quotations. Ackermans book reminds us that we too can make our paradise here and that tranquility can be achieved by contemplating the petals of a rose. - New York Times Book Review

“A fascinating tour of plant mythology and fact …[Ackerman] plays both sleuth and poet.” - People