Seed to Dust - A Gardener’s Story, Marc Hamer (ISBN 978-1-787-30206-8)

Happy New Year everyone!, here is a book we first heard about in January 2021, as featured on Saturday Live radio, where author Marc Hamer was discussing amongst other things his interesting relationship with the garden owner, the older and enigmatic Miss Cashmere. As many of us will know the relationship between a gardener and an owner is an interesting one, sometimes fleeting, but more often one that lasts many years. Sometimes the task is just keeping a garden tidy and nature at bay, more often trying to create a pleasing aesthetic vision in the mind’s eye of an owner (often from a very different background), working with plants and climate that can be a tad unpredictable, bordering on capricious at time, no mean feat!.

The book covers a period of several decades, the author working as sole gardener of 12 acres, for this one older lady. The writing is powerful and poetic, underpinned with good practical plant knowledge and the a deep knowledge of nature, that comes from years of quiet observation. As the book unfolds, the author reveals more about himself with unflinching honesty, his background, being an outsider and his philosophy on life and relationships. Writing this review, rekindles the urge to reread this book for a second time, as at times it is definitely profound.

We hope you enjoy this choice - happy reading…….