A Garden's Purpose: Cultivating Our Connection with the Natural World - Hardcover

Essays and Stories to Inspire Connection with Gardens and the Natural World

This collection of essays and stories invites readers to understand gardens as places where we build mutually beneficial relationships with the living world. Written in an accessible tone, the book explores gardens as spaces of gentle activism, abundance, and frameworks for engaging with the more-than-human world through care, reciprocity, and creativity.

"A garden, as Félix de Rosen suggests in this book, is not a place separate to the world but a tether to it. At a time of increasing ecological and cultural fragmentation and loss, de Rosen reminds us of the importance of the garden as a place of gentle activism and abundance, and gardening as a framework for being with the more-than-human world--engaging with care, reciprocity, and creativity. A Garden's Purpose is an important, timely book." -- Georgina Reid, editor of Wonderground Journal and author of The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants

What This Book Covers

Each chapter focuses on a specific element of garden design and philosophy. Topics include diverse places where gardens grow—from San Francisco driveways to bathtubs as planters—and practical garden management techniques, such as why some lawns require daily watering while other gardens can survive nearly a year without irrigation. The book explores color and texture applications, including how fine-textured plants like grasses unify spaces.

Hundreds of gardens from around the globe are featured in full-color photography, showcasing diverse approaches to ecological design and sustainable landscaping practices.

Gardens as Multifunctional Spaces

As beautiful spaces, gardens fill us with hope and wonder. As gathering places, they nurture friendships and communities. Thoughtfully crafted, they make us pause and appreciate our surroundings. Full of edible plants, they nourish us. Full of diversity—human and non-human—they connect us with the polychromatic world in which we live. They make us feel at home in our own bodies, in our cities, and on our planet.