Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening

- Gardening is America's #1 pastime: Over 70 million households in the U.S. are engaged in gardening activities, and consumer sales of gardening materials exceed 26 billion dollars a year.- Books that teach people to foster their creativity, like "The Artist's Way (Tarcher, 1992) by Julia Cameron and "Writing Down the Bones (Shambala, 1986) by Natalie Goldberg, are perennial bestsellers.- The foreword to this book was written by renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Erika Fromm, Professor Emeritus in Psychology at the University of Chicago.- Fran Sorin has been a regular contributor on NBC's "Weekend Today show, and has appeared on "LIVE with Regis and Kelly, HGTV, the Discovery Channel, Lifetime, and NBC10 in Philadelphia. She is the host of a weekly call-in radio show, writes for "USA Weekend, is the gardening expert for iVillage.com, and has served as the media garden spokesperson for MSN.com. She operates a garden design business and teaches hands-on workshops in her own garden in Pennsylvania.

"Garden designer Sorin invites readers to 'unearth' their 'creative roots' in a book long on platitudes and cheerful encouragement but unfortunately lacking in advice that would-be gardeners can put to real use. In the introduction ('what does it mean to be creative?'), Sorin sets the book's tone by explaining that her 'mission is not to have everyone create world-class gardens, but?to show new and experienced gardeners alike how they can use their gardens?as tools for their creative awakening.' Accordingly, she organizes her book into 'seven stages of creative unfolding': Imagining, Envisioning, Planning, Planting, Tending, Enjoying and Completing. These are sensible divisions, certainly, but the exercises that Sorin provides offers within are not always inspiring (e.g., 'Ask yourself: What would I do in my garden if there were no limits on time or money?'; 'Spend some time writing about times in your life when you followed your instincts, both in and outside your garden'). Even in sections like 'Tips for Container Gardening,' which offer numerous opportunities to introduce hands-on advice, Sorin's recommendations ('add water-retaining gel crystals') are familiar. Sorin does provide some useful bits, listing, for example, 'The Six Must-Have Gardening Tools' and giving suggestions for controlling pests without using toxic chemicals. But the bulk of her book takes gardening as a metaphor for emotional and spiritual growth — which means that readers heading for the self-help aisles might like this volume better than those wandering through the gardening section." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

For experienced and would-be gardeners alike, this beautiful book leads readers through a process at creative discovery that encourages them to bloom right along with their gardens. 224 one-color line drawings.