BOOK REVIEWS
THE VIEW FROM FEDERAL TWIST
by James Golden
Filbert F Press, £40 ISBN 978-1999734572
Thoughtful, well written and finely produced, this description of the creation of a backwoods plot offers far more than the usual ‘we made a garden’ story.
Reviewer Tim Richardson is a garden writer and critic.
For the past 15 years, James Golden has led the way among long-form garden bloggers, ranging widely but always returning to the topic of naturalistic planting. All the while he has used his own garden – the curiously named Federal Twist – as the backdrop. This book is not a collection of his blogs, though they are occasionally quoted, but a fresh description of the making of this garden, a semi-retirement project set deep in woodland in western New Jersey, USA. It’s a conventional enough premise, but there is much more, since the text is spliced with insightful horticultural-philosophical digressions on aesthetic effects, atmosphere, the qualities of specific plants and finally, what it means to make a garden.
The author is all too aware of the
