Susan Davis Price
The Cottage Gardener
St. Paul Pioneer Press
"Immigrants to Minnesota from around the world have brought with them a lot more than warm clothes. They've brought a love of gardening that trandsends oceans and continents. St. Paul garden historian Susan David Price captures the spirit of gardeners from such far-flung places as Guatamala, Greece, Laos, and Uganda who have transported their passion for working the soil to Minnesota."
Nancy McDonald, The American Gardener
"This book is a delight from the beginning to end. It's a book of tales, all of them true, of recent immigrants and the gardens they have created...Growing Home is beautifully illustrated with John Gregor's color photos of gardens and gardeners...This is an excellent bedtime book; each chapter is complete in itself..Growing Home reminds me of what gives us our greatest strength as a nation: the hybrid vigor we gain from the blend of cultures that is America...You will enjoy Growing Home. It will make an excellent gift; I've got it earmarked for three gardening friends already. It comes with my highest recommendation."
Grand Forks Herald
"Growing Home is the story of 31 Minnesota gardeners and what they grow. Some have been in the state only a few months; others trace their lineage back generations. The book should attract not only veteran gardeners but those who may want to go out and try their 'green thumbs'. After reading the book, it's hard not to go out into your garden and start digging and planting...The expertise of Price as an author is evident. She is author of Minnesota Gardens: An Illustrated History which won an award from the Garden Writer's Association of America."
Star Tribune, Minneapolis
"Growing Home is not about how to garden: it is a treasury of gardening stories about a diverse group of gardeners who re-created the gardens they knew in the formative years -- gardens that reflect their ethnic backgrounds and traditions...These people use their gardens to maintain a vital link to their culture and traditions."
Edward J. Valauskas, Manager, Library and Plant Information Office at the Chicago Botanic Garden
Gardens are a tonic for the homesick and the nostalgic, memory palaces to bring back different times and places in a new world. Susan Davis Price explores the ways in which gardeners with plants, soil, techniques and effort reconstruct their visions of exotic and sometimes forgotten places. Five chapters treat gardens created for visual impact as well as those designed for the kitchen. In Carlton County south of Duluth, Minnesota, Karla and Charlie created a landscape full of birches and evergreens and a sauna surrounded by phlox, to remember Finland. For 33 Korean elders in Minneapolis, the Korean Peace Garden is "their life" with unique plants such as the suk or Artemisia vulgaris used in soups and salads. Beatrice handles in her garden many of her Ugandan favorites, such as walking onions or Allium cepa, cucumbers, broccoli and brussels sprouts. Filled with photographs by John Gregor, this book will inspire many to explore their horticultural roots. Why not fill a garden with ugbogoro?
Awards