James Dodson

After a promising start, describing a trip to South Africa to examine native species, the auhor shifts and spends far too much time on the Philadelphia and Chelse gardern shows, before returning to S. Africa. The author really fails in any effort to actually describe gardens or landscapes, and if more interested in talking to gardeners and growers. We do not even get a good sesne of the authors own gardens in Maine. Why is that? I do not know. Maybe a few photos would have helped? The author just is not very good at revealing the structure and overall design of these landscapes even when telling us about the artificial creations at the garden shows. Several things are very puzzling. As one example, there are too many references to "banded pelargoniums" -- but a Google search shows that term hasn't really been used since the 19th century. I assume it is a species? Does "banded" refer to the flowers or foliage? Where did he pick that up?… (meer)

I wanted to enjoy this book, if for no other reason than it being a gift from my wife. But I could not. The entire narrative of American in Europe suffering culture shock seems so overdone as a whole and in this case so forced I simply could not involve myself in the text. It had a few cute moments, but on balance I don't see how the author could not have said in a magazine article what he said in this 305 page book. The father/son bonding felt especially forced, though I admit I'd be hard-pressed to point to a specific passage were I called on to defend this.

But, since this is an age where the consumer is king and may decide their likes and dislikes at their own whim, I'm not particularly embarassed at giving what I might have once upon a time considered an unfair review. This "consumer" didn't enjoy this book. And on that note I shall simply move onto something else.… (meer)