Beautiful Madness

When James Dodson fell for gardening, he fell hard—so hard that he soon found himself on a whirlwind tour of the globe, feeding his horticultural obsession at gardening shows in London and Philadelphia, smuggling cuttings from the estate of Thomas Jefferson, and eventually hanging off a cliff in the South African rain forest in his quest for new and exotic plant species. Dodson chronicles his year of green-thumb fever in Beautiful Madness, a story rooted in the fertile soil of America’s passion for all things gardening. Dodson’s journey through other people’s gardens includes an encounter with the high rollers who bid top dollar at auctions of rare plants; a meeting with the retired business executive nicknamed the Botticelli of Bulbs; and a weekend with the Mad Man of Kew, whose wife tends the garden of Queen Victoria. A tale of one man’s mania for gardening—and of the many others who share it—Beautiful Madness is sure to stoke the passion of anyone who loves to dig in the dirt.

Takes us on a four-season dash through other people’s gardens--with weeks off for frenetic work in his own. (The New York Times Book Review)

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