On gardening books and the human condition

Over his long career, Noel Kingsbury has written more than 25 books on plants and gardens, from how-to guides to cultural studies, such as his newest, “The Story of Flowers: And How They Changed the Way We Live.” He has co-authored five books with the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, who created New York City’s High Line’s landscapes. Kingsbury also wrote

“Wild: The Naturalistic Garden,” which explores the growing trend of gardening in synch with nature. The British-born author lives in Portugal.

BOOKS: What are you reading? KINGSBURY: I tend to read a lot of history, specifically about why, in the 18th century, European culture took off and changed cultures around the world. Last year I read Joseph Henrich’s “The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous,” which is extraordinary. It’s about how psychology is based on people with European heritage. Yet, if you consider people of non-European heritage, you realize most people in the world have a completely different psychology. We are the weird ones.

BOOKS: How long have you been pursuing that question in your reading? KINGSBURY: About 10 to 15 years tops. I want to understand the human condition better. I also like to see how gardening, plant science, and horticulture fit into that historical narrative with books such as Darryl Moore’s “Gardening in a Changing World: Plants, People and the Climate Crisis.” The book is an intellectual history of garden and landscape design over the past 100 years. There’s a marvelous book on British gardening, Tim Richardson’s “The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English

‘When I come across something different, that is what I hone in on.’

Landscape Garden.” It’s a very lively read for garden history and a whole new take on the 18th-century landscape.

BOOKS: Which gardening books do you recommend the most? KINGSBURY: James Golden’s “The View from Federal Twist.” I don’t often read a garden book from cover to cover but I did this one. Golden took up gardening as a hobby at his weekend place in the backwoods of New Jersey and created a very unusual garden. His book is a sensitive account of what goes on in a garden and how you work with plant growth and habit rather than direct it. Another book I would flag is Emma Marris’s “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World.” She’s a well-known American science writer. Her book challenges traditional ideas of what ecology is about. It’s quite brave stuff.

BOOKS: Was there a gardening author or book that was especially influential for you?

KINGSBURY: Back when I was first getting into gardening professionally in the 1980s I, like a lot of people in my field, read Christopher Lloyd’s “The Well-Tempered Garden.” He was considered the Great British garden writer. He wrote for Country Life magazine every week for about a half a century. His garden in East Sussex is still one of the world’s great gardens. He was such a good writer, so knowledgeable but with a great sense of humor.

BOOKS: What makes you pick up a garden book?

KINGSBURY: It’s got to break new ground, but garden publishing is like a big great compost pile that recycles knowledge and opinions. The same old stuff gets endlessly repeated so when I come across something different, that is what I hone in on.

BOOKS: How many of those will you find in a year?

KINGSBURY: There is probably one book a year that says something really different, maybe two, if you are lucky, and then these books tend to set a trend. A great example would be Olivier Filippi, a French nurseryman who has this fantastic knowledge of the Mediterranean basin. He’s written “The Dry Gardening Handbook,” about how you can create a garden without irrigation by really understanding drought and climate.

BOOKS: Do you own a lot of books? KINGSBURY: When we moved to Portugal, we shed a lot but we probably still have a good 15 meters of bookshelf space. Still, I inevitably scour the shelf for something and think, did I really give that book away?

BOOKS: What is the book you’ve had the longest?

KINGSBURY: Graham Stuart Thomas’s “Perennial Garden Plants.” When that book came out in 1976 there was almost nothing on perennials, unlike now. His knowledge was enormous, and he was a wonderful writer. There is an aristocratic turn of phrase that crops up here and there in his writing, so you know you are learning from an elderly, opinionated gentleman who knew his stuff.