Literary Gardens by Sandra Lawrence, illustrated by Lucille Clerc

 

This beautiful book looks at a number of fictional gardens, selected to offer a range of different types of gardens in different geographical locations and different genres of writing and including the sacred (the ancient Hindi epic Ramayana by legendary poet Valmiki) the famous (such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll) and the less well known (including Jorge Luis Borges' The Garden of Forking Paths.) Each garden is lovingly recreated in exquisitely detailed paintings by Lucille Clerc, while Sandra Lawrence explores the role of each garden in its particular story and explores the inspirations that might have fed into the author's creation. 

The first fictional garden to be discussed, is unsurprisingly, the garden of Misselthwaite Manor which appears in the 1911 classic The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, who was herself a keen gardener. The garden, that we are told is mostly fictional, and the robin that lives there (based on a robin that Hodgson Burnett befriended in her own garden) serve to enable the protagonist Mary to discover her best self. In contrast, the garden in Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden (a book that is forever, in my mind, connected to The Secret Garden by the trope of a child discovering a garden) is closely modelled on the author's own garden. Whether entirely fictional or closely inspired by real gardens, these are well described gardens. The garden in Patrick White's The Hanging Garden. however, is shown only obliquely as if the adults reading the novel aren't allowed to trespass into this garden where the young protagonists play. (This book is now on my wishlist, as I love White's writing, his wonderfully odd style that makes the reader look at things in a different way.) Another garden that is barely described is that in The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twen Eng, which uses the garden as metaphor for the impermanence of life. (I now want to re-read this book.) The maze in Larry's Party by Carol Shields is largely inspired by the author's own love of mazes, as is the protagonist's tour of mazes across Europe. The weirdest garden of all must be that of Death in Terry Pratchett's Mort, where everything is black and where shovelling manure may (or may not) turn out to reveal the uttermost secret of time and space. 

The differing responses of characters to gardens is also explored, from Hercule Poirot's discomfort in Agatha Christie's The Hallowe'en Garden and the rabbits' fear of the gardener in Beatrix Potter's Tale of Peter Rabbit. Gardens are often presented as havens, not least in Giorgio Bassani's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, where the characters find short-lived refuge from the realities of Mussolini's Italy. Another well-used trope is that of the garden gate as a portal, as in H G Wells' story The Door in the Wall, in which the main character repeatedly passes by the door to his dream garden without taking the chance to enter the garden itself. 

As well as the gardens themselves, Literary Gardens looks at plants, including entirely fictional plants (such as the triffids in John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids), poisonous plants (for example in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter) and 'world trees' including the Tree of Knowledge from the Bible and Yggrdrasil,from Nordic legend. I was interested to read that Alexandre Dumas' The Black Tulip, set during the historical Dutch tulip mania, set off a quest that is still going today, to grow a perfectly black tulip. 

It's worth giving a good long look at the illustrations. The details are amazing - that really looks like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall hidden away in the orchid house in the illustration for Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and how many bunnies can you find in the illustration for The Tale of Peter Rabbit? 

Other works mentioned include the short stories The Enchanted Garden by Italo Calvino (whose parents were botanists) and Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf; Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca; Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (Mary Annette Beauchamp); The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis; Sei Shonagen's Pillow Book; My Garden (Book) by Jamaica Kincaid, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Scene Two of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Not only a wonderfully vivid recreation of a variety of fictional gardens, this book also acts as a themed collection of literary reviews and as a guide on how to use gardens and plants in creating atmosphere in stories. After reading this, you'll not only want to re-read it again and enjoy the paintings, but you're likely to end up with a whole list of other books to read or re-read. 

Literary Gardens by Sandra Lawrence, illustrated by Lucille Clerc, published (18 September, 2025) by Frances Lincoln, an imprint of Quarto. 

Note: I was sent a free pdf of this book in return for an honest review.  

The New Global Possible by Ani Dasgupta

 

 Subtitled Rebuilding Optimism in the Age of Climate Crisis, this is a book of informed optimism from the President and CEO of The World Resources Institute, an organization with over forty years of experience at the forefront of the climate movement. The book comes with high profile recommendation, including a foreword from Christiana Figueres, so I was delighted to be asked to review it. The chapters of this book are organized around 6 key themes:

Multilateralism: Countries Can Collaborate
Technology: We Must Innovate for Good
Business: The Limits of Voluntary Action
Justice: It Is Not a Choice
Cities: Laboratories for Change
Economy: A New Growth Story

Using these topics as the basis, this very detailed, impressively researched book explores various aspects of the climate crisis, sharing stories of initiatives that have worked, from the creation of extensive cycling infrastructure in Copenhagen to the large scale use of satellite photography to combat illegal deforestation to the successes of various high-profile international conferences over the years since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The author is very good at identifying what is really important, the need for governments to work together, both with other countries but also with civic society and with business. 

The real conclusion is that we need to change the systems we work with, to ensure that we can better address the issues we face. And here is where the optimistic view runs into problems. After reading all the inspiring stories of forward thinking cities, collaborative projects and creative solutions, I was left wondering how we are going to achieve the overall systems change that we need so that these individual beacons of hope can actually act as the basis for a sustainable future across the world. As the author says:

"we won’t achieve our goals unless we fix the overarching economic system that incentivizes pollution, deforestation, and economic inequality. These scourges aren’t glitches to be patched up one by one; they are design features of the very economic system we have developed over centuries."

Are we prepared to dismantle that economic system and if so, do we have any chance of dismantling it quickly enough? 

I found this book both fascinating and hopeful and can definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in a cuatiously optimistic overview of where we currently stand in relation to the climate crisis. 

The New Global Possible (9781633310667, Disruption Books, published 9 September, 2025

 

Disclaimer: I was sent a free pdf of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Late Summer expedition to Arthur's Seat

Although the trees are losing their leaves early due to the dry Spring and Summer we've had, the weather still feels like Summer here. We chose Arthur's Seat for yesterday's walk as I particularly wanted to see another Small Copper butterfly (one of my favourite butterflies) before the end of the season. And we were lucky! This beautiful little Small Copper posed for us on the path

We chose a different route than the one we usually use to walk round Arthur's Seat  - partly enforced as part of the main route is closed due to the risk of rock fall after the recent fires on top of the hill. You can see some of the area affected by the fire in the photo below, though it may not entirely clear, the higher land in the background has been burned. The fire was probably caused by a carelessly dropped cigarette or similar and spread quickly in the dry conditions. It was put out pretty quickly by the fire brigade.  

The views around Arthur's Seat are always beautiful 

 the hillside path 

a view towards Salisbury Crags 

  

a view of Arthur's Seat itself  

 

 a view over to Calton Hill 

 

We also stopped at Duddingston Loch (above) where we were greeted by this handsome male pheasant

 

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I'm delighted to have a poem included in the selection published by the Ekphrastic Review in response to the painting Eschatalogical by Kitty North.

A Berry Bright Riverside Walk

 I did my regular litter picking, wildlife recording walk along Edinburgh's Water of Leith this morning. It was a lovely morning, the sunshine looking lovely through the late Summer leaves

I was delighted to find this clump of Cuckoo Pint, which oddly I've never noticed before. 

 

I often see the berries at this time of year, but rarely see the arums. Luckily the clump above is in quite a memorable location so I hope to be able to find the arums in the spring. Wikipedia has a good page about this fascinating plant, along with a photo of the arum stage. 

Ant Invasion (Malawi, 1991)

As if from nowhere
an endless stream of large black ants
invaded our home.

. 

We had become fond of their smaller cousins

that seemed to kiss

as they passed each other on our kitchen walls

but these sharp-jawed soldiers marched

through every room –

our house a mere obstacle on their route.

.

Walking too close to walls

we risked our feet being nipped

by a member of this single-minded colony

just travelling from A to B.

.

And in this land carved out from forest

who are the invaders anyway?

 

 

originally published in the Russell Streur Nature Poetry Anthology published by North of Oxford.  

 

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I published a new post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack today, you can read it here. 

 

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I'm happy to have a haiku included in the September 2025 issue of Sense and Sensibility.  

Robin

 

autumn sunshine -
the robin's song
changes key 

 

previously published on Haiku Seeds.  

Weekend Walks

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk around Blackford Pond and the Hermitage of Braid. The pond is looking quite low after the very dry year we've had so far (though it has been raining occasionally over the past week). 

The Braid Burn is also quite low where it flows through the Hermitage  

and the grass at Midmar Paddock is looking very yellow 

 On Friday lunchtime we had walked the Maroon Mile from Tynecastle Stadium to the War Memorial at Haymarket. The Maroon Mile has been punctuated with information boards about local history and the history of Hearts Football Club to celebrate the club's 150th anniversary. North Merchiston Cemetery (of which I'm a member of the Friends Group) hosts two information boards, one celebrating the wildlife of the cemetery (including the 'Footballer Hoverfly' (Helophilus pendulus) which hasn't been marked with a photo)

 and the other highlighting the people buried in the cemetery who had connections with Hearts. 

I've written a wee bit more about the Maroon Mile over on my Shapeshifting Green blog. You can read it here. 

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In the run up to the 2026 Scottish Parliament Elections, Scottish Wildlife Trust are asking our politicians to Take Nature Seriously. read more here. 
 

Moody Clouds above Edinburgh

 I carried out a butterfly survey today at Lauriston Farm, Edinburgh's Agro-ecology project. I didn't see many butterflies at all, but was impressed by the clouds and surprised it didn't start raining while I was there. (I was hoping it would start raining as soon as I finished the survey, we desperately need the rain but you can't survey butterflies in the rain.)

 

Edited to add: it's now raining! Pouring! Hope this lasts for a while. 

Easter Craiglockart Hill and Pond

Yesterday we walked round Easter Craiglockart Hill and Pond. There are lovely views from the hill over to the Pentland Hills to the south of Edinburgh (the clouds look very moody in the photo below, but there was only the slightest bit of drizzle all day)

 The pond was quite busy with birds, though not many are visible in the photo below 

We were amazed by the number of Harlequin Ladybirds in the vegetation at the edge of the pond - the photos below show two of the very different forms of the adult Harlequins 

 While below shows a Harlequin larva 

It feels as though autumn is already here as the lack of rain over most of the year means that many trees are losing their leaves really early. 

 The Purple Loosestrife is beautiful at the side of the pond

 while it was nice to see these seed pods of Birds Foot Trefoil which demonstrate clearly why this particular plant was given its name 

After a nice lunch, we walked home along the canal and admired the Hairy Willowherb  

** 

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was considering shutting down my Crafty Green Magpie shop on Etsy. However, I've now decided to keep the shop open for another year before making a final decision. You can visit the shop here. 

Speckled Wood Butterflies

Speckled Wood butterflies seem to be everywhere in good numbers at the moment. They have two broods a year and the adults we're seeing at the moment are from their second brood. I saw this individual yesterday, who looks as though its had some hard times recently but still surviving well enough. 

 

Butterflies on Corstorphine Hill

 We had a lovely walk around Corstorphine Hill today. It's always a wonderful place for a walk and a particularly nice place on a hot day as there is so much woodland cover to offer shade when it gets too hot (which it is regularly doing these days). 

 We started our walk in the Walled Garden, where the flower border was literally buzzing with a variety of bees and hoverflies, including this Dasysyrphus tricinctus (not the best photo in the world, but a rarely seen hoverfly for us, so worth sharing) 

We were also pleased to see several butterflies in the garden, including this Red Admiral  

and this Peacock

 Beyond the Walled Garden, we were delighted to see Small Copper Butterflies in two different parts of the hill, the first time I've seen this lovely little butterfly this year

It's lovely to see butterflies having a good year after several very poor years. We really do need some rain here though, it's been an incredibly dry year so far and wildfire warnings have been issued across Scotland. (In fact, last weekend there was a fire on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh). 
 

 

Dwell by Simon Armitage

 

Yesterday I had the great good fortune to be able to attend Simon Armitage's event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The event was actually already sold out, but a friend who had a ticket was unable to attend and had passed her ticket on to me! 

I had already bought the book in the festival bookshop before the event and had read it all while queueing to get into the Spiegeltent where Armitage (the UK's Poet Laureate) was to speak. It's a short book, full of accessible poetry and beautifully presented, with wonderful illustrations by Beth Munro. 

The book focuses on the places where animals live and was inspired by the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. Poems range from haiku to Insect Hotel, which imagines Trip Advisor type reviews from a range of inhabitants: 

"Stopped here overnight on the way to a decaying oak a couple of miles away and ended up hibernating for the whole winter. Would deffo recommend. Dreamland."   

At the event, chaired by Nick Barley (former director of the Edinburgh International Boook Festival and now director of the National Poetry Centre in Leeds) Armitage read from Dwell and discussed his writing process and the state of nature conservation in the UK. 

Some people have commented that the book seems 'slight', which on first glance it might do (though I prefer to think of it as small and perfectly formed). However, the poems in the book have a double life and will themselves dwell in the Lost Gardens of Heligan, in a series of installations around the site, so that people will be able to find poetry as they walk around. 

It was an excellent event and the book would make a beautiful gift for any poetry lover or anyone interested in animal homes. And if you get the chance, visit the Lost Gardens of Heligan and see if you can find the poems in situ!  

Dwell by Simon Armitage, published by Faber (2025)  

Butterflies and Oak Galls in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens

We had a lovely visit to Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens yesterday. As this year's Big Butterfly Count  finishes today, we decided to carry out a quick count of butterflies in one of the flower borders in the Botanics. We were delighted to see this beautiful Red Admiral 

 

and this lovely Speckled Wood 

In another part of the gardens, we came across a wonderful oak tree that had several different types of galls on it. We're used to seeing galls on oak trees, but I've never seen so many different galls on one tree. There were Knopper Galls, caused by the wasp Andricus quercuscalicis:

Oak Marble Galls, caused by the wasp Andricus kollari

Artichoke galls, caused by the wasp Andricus foecundatrix

 and Spangle Galls (the circular galls on the underside of the leaf in the photo below) caused by the wasp Neuroterus quercusbaccarum

We also walked through Inverleith Park and met this very handsome feral pigeon by the Pond 

  

 

A Good Year for Insects?

 I carried out a butterfly survey at Lauriston Farm today. As regular readers might remember, this is the site of Edinburgh's Agro-ecology Project, which is rewilding parts of the fields and setting up community growing plots and planting orchard trees among other activities. The organisation is keen to know how wildlife is benefitting from the rewildling initiatives. The last couple of years haven't been great for butterflies, but this year I've seen more of many species, both on the farm and elsewhere. Though today I didn't see a lot of butterflies (the wind, though acceptable for a butterfly survey was possibly too strong for good numbers to turn up). I did see a Meadow Brown (though the photo below was taken a couple of years ago in Portobello Cemetery)

 

The latest post on my Crafty Green Substack went live this morning, follow the link to read it: A Better Year for Insects.  

Time to leave Etsy?

My Crafty Green Magpie Shop has been open on Etsy for nine years now. I also for a while had a separate Crafty Green Poet shop (for handmade items only) at which time the Crafty Green Magpie sold only vintage and craft supplies. More recently I amalgamated the two shops. Over the years I've sold a fair amount of things, though it's never been hugely busy. Now though, the listing fees barely make it worthwhile, given that sales are becoming rarer. (I haven't helped this by recently limiting my sales to the UK, due to various customs issues with various overseas markets, but then the UK was always my largest market). 

So, at the moment I'm thinking of only keeping the shop open until the current listings have all run their natural course. I may change my mind but it's looking likely that this is the end. You can have a final look around here.  

Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? by Lev Parikian

 

I first came across Lev Parikian via his excellent Six Things Substack, which includes his 100 Birds posts, which are clearly related to his book Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? 

As a youngster, Lev Parikian was an avid birdwatcher. He also told lies about his birdwatching success.  One hundred and thirty species ticked off on his list? It was really more like sixty. When he turned fifty, he decided to go birdwatching again.  He would aim to see two hundred British bird species in a year. And this time he wouldn't lie.

This book details the author's rediscovery of the joys and challenges of birdwatching. The narrative skillfully blends information with personal anecdote, plenty of humour and vivid descriptions such as this observation of a group of Canada Geese: 

"A squadron of eight birds organising themselves into formation, calling to each other in fervid excitement, a frenzy of organised chaos coming together at the last second as the final goose slots into place. They churn the water and the air, sending their fellow waterfowl scuttling for cover.... I'm struck by the everyday beauty of the spectacle." 

This sighting of a common bird is what really sets Lev off on his ambition to see 200 birds in Britain in one year. Two hundred seeming like a manageable target. So each chapter tells of a month's birdwatching, his visits to various bird reserves around Britain and his meetings with conservationists and bird experts. There's a list of birds seen that month at the end of  each chapter so you can follow his progress as he goes along. He's not just ticking birds off a list though, he's learning about their behaviour, the evolution of flight and birdsong. As a conductor he's particularly interested in music, but admits to finding birdsong challenging (which I think is something most of us can relate to!). 

His enthusiasm always shines through, he's always as delighted to see a common bird as a rarity and has little time for the type of birder who'll ignore a whole flock of lapwings in pursuit of a rarity. He also makes the point that a birder from the 1950s would wonder where all the birds have gone, lapwings nowadays are almost a rarity themselves. 

One of my favourite parts of the book is where he visits Edinburgh and discovers the wonderful place for birds that is the Water of Leith (one of my favourite birding places). 

"The Water of Leith is twenty-five miles long. The odds against there being a dipper on this short stretch must be ooh look, there's a dipper."  

 This is a very entertaining and informative book for anyone interested in birds, particularly anyone who grew up enjoying birdwatching and who has lost the habit. Reading this will definitely make you want to get back out into the field.  

Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? by Lev Parikian, published by Unbound.  

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Dr Neil's Garden, Duddingston

 On Saturday, we visited Dr Neil's Garden, a hidden gem on the edge of Duddingston Loch,  

near Edinburgh's Arthur's Seat (which you can see in the background to the right of the photo below)

It always seems to me to be an ideal place to spend a hot summer's day, with it's waterside location and benches positioned under a variety of shady, mature trees. We were delighted to see a variety of insect life too including Common Darter Dragonflies 

a couple of Wall Butterflies 

and this bee (I think it's a Common Carder) who had found a pleasant resting place in between the petals of this ornamental daisy 

At the edge of the garden is Thomson's Tower 

which hosts regular small art exhibitions, including the current exhibition of work by Irene Bell, Linda Green and Marion Barron which is on until 7 August.

The above photo of Thomson's Tower was taken from Jock Tamson's Gairden, which is a community garden, with orchard trees, vegetable plots and wildflower areas. 

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Also this weekend we enjoyed an exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland. Monkeys: our Primate family is beautifully curated and informative with several interactive activities for children and the young at heart. It would be improved if it could include a bit about the ethics of animal collection, with specific reference to how the taxidermy specimens in the exhibition were collected.