Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins

“An enchanting work, unlike any other gardening book in existence.”—Stanley Kunitz, New York Times Book Review

“As she chronicles her various discoveries in the market bulletins, Lawrence also reveals a good bit that is fresh and delicate in American life. . . . Anyone who has ever read Elizabeth Lawrence will expect an enchanting two hours from her, and will find it.”—Henry Mitchell, Washington Post Book World

Lawrence’s book is a celebration of life in all its diversity, and life, she makes us feel, is the main event.”—Richard Dyer, Boston Globe

“Gardening for Love is a collection of Elizabeth Lawrence’s writings centered around her 40-year correspondence with the avid gardeners—of rural Mississippi, the Carolinas, Georgia, and other states—who share their seeds and plants by ads in bulletins selling everything from moonvines to puppies.
“As garden writer Allen Lacy points out in his eloquent introduction, Lawrence was far more than just a regional writer. Just as Eudora Welty—the friend who first interested Elizabeth Lawrence in the Mississippi Market Bulletin— has the voice and feel of her native Jackson, Mississippi, so Lawrence has an intimate knowledge of her home soil.
“But her scope, just like Welty’s, stretches far and deep, reaching into the hearts of not only gardeners, but any reader fascinated with the comings and goings of the human race. . . . There’s a sense of comfort in this book, in the eternity of tending plants that stretch back through the centuries.”—Anne Raver, Newsday