This book has kept its place on my shelves for 3 decades and has never come close to being culled. I must have read it four or five times and it never disappoints. What more could you ask of a book?
The 3,000 miles in question takes us from Eccleston Square in London to Cushing in Maine, USA. Eccleston Square is in Pimlico, not far from Victoria and most people there live in flats, looking out (if they are lucky) onto a communal garden square. The corresponding garden in the east coast state of Maine could not be more different: an unworked plot in amongst scrubland and truly miles from anywhere.
So that is the setting and the characters are equally different and interesting in their own particular ways. Roger Phillips is a photographer and writer and looks after the 3 acre site in central London whilst Leslie Land is an American cookery and garden writer who summers in Maine, retreating to New York to avoid a wild, wilderness winter. Thinking about it, I wonder if the winters are quite as extreme as they were 30 years ago. Anyway, she is filled with enormous energy and enthusiasm and creates a garden from woodland and rocky coast line.
The 2 gardeners meet in America on a mushroom foray in upstate New York and when Roger returns to London they begin a correspondence which continues for many years. Roger has a wife and family in his city flat and Leslie is single but there is no agenda here, hidden or otherwise. They write lengthy, dynamic, slightly eccentric letters to each other bursting with a love of plants and gardens and sometimes cooking and recipes as well. They are both big, vibrant personalities and this comes through clearly in their writing. So, this book is a series of letters. I think even if you were not a gardener it would still be enjoyable. It somehow feels a little like eavesdropping on a conversation between 2 friends who have lots to say to each other and their passion for gardening shines through. General life is involved too, such as when it is planned to dig up Eccleston Square to build a car park, (it didn’t happen in the end!) and when Leslie speaks at a conference about the evils of factory farming. I have to remember that 1990 was well before the time when climate change was a normal topic of conversation.
So I think this is a lovely, affirmative read with photos, drawings, recipes and more. It was apparently made into a TV series decades ago by Channel 4. I’m sorry I missed it. In the blurb, this book is described as a kind of horticultural version of 84 Charing Cross Road and I think that is a perfect fit.
This paperback is available cheaply and secondhand from Amazon.
Roger Phillips died in 2021.
Leslie Land has an interesting blog:
Leslie Land: in kitchen and garden.