SEED TO DUST: A GARDENER’S STORY

BY MARC HAMER, VINTAGE PUBLISHING, £14.99 (HB)

Like the plants that Marc Hamer spends his days working with, this book changes and ebbs with the shifting seasons. As the cold of winter transforms into spring, summer abundance dwindles into autumn, he beautifully captures the periods of rest and work, the times of plenty and those of scarcity, drawing you in to the beauty of each season and savouring what they bring to the plants and his life.

With carefully crafted descriptions, Hamer weaves in such evocative details that you feel like you know every corner of the 12-acre garden he has spent more than two decades tending. You’ll find yourself walking the newly laid path and dangling your fingers in the diminishing pond, marvelling at the dahlias and scything the wildflower meadow alongside him. He also offers a fascinating insight into the conflicted world of being an employed gardener – the plight of designing and working in a space that does not belong to you, and the curious intimacy that this relationship can bring.

Alongside the daily work in the garden, he seamlessly entwines his own story – of childhood as an outsider, a wandering period of homelessness, having his own family and his eventual journey to working with plants and the joy he has found in it.

This is a book for gardeners and garden lovers alike, and one that will leave you wondering what stories lurk behind each and every garden gate.