Moss Gardening
 George Schenk
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1998 Timber Press, Portland Oregon USA
  ISBN: 0881923702


Including Lichens, Liverworts and Other Miniatures, mosses tell an ancient success story of longevity & adaptability, appearing in fossils 400 million years old & totaling 15,000 species from the Arctic to Antarctica. It is the first book to cover the whole gamut of moss gardening & is destined to become a classic in its own right.

Impressively illustrated with glorious full color photographs of the many & various moods of moss gardening from a tilled sand Zen meditation complete with moss covered stones to sun-dappled woodlands, carpeted in a glowing shag of green.

It says something about George Schenk's affection & enthusiasm for the gardening of these plants that had me gobbling this book up like asparagus in season.

I then immediately took a walkabout of our sliver of land & for the first time saw the variety & beauty of that ground cover I'd simply ignored or considered a blight upon my erstwhile unweathered topography.

Moss gardening is deeply meditational, rather like slowing oneself down enough to watch a mushroom bloom, moss requires that you linger longer, look closer & be still. George Schenk, in response to his editor's admonition which is published in the preface, has delivered.

Moss Gardening is destined to be a unique classic on the shelves of the toilers of the land. It is also the tale of a determined fellow who's going to change the face of peoples' gardens only to find that, after years of inspection, the mosses have minds of their own. Where he insisted that one type of moss grow, another kind took over & made, even to his thwarted eyes, a better carpet for the terrain.

As much as this is a tale of a man bending down to earth to study the life cycles of little green plants, it is also a grand geography lesson as George Schenk flies hither & yon to tend, coddle & coerce moss gardens around the globe.

I know it sounds oxymoronic when I gush that Moss Gardening is one exciting read. Certainly not to be osmosified in one sitting. This is a book I've got on my gift list because it's not just about little green plants that have been covering the Earth in lush shag carpets for eons, it's also about the love of life, the love of verdancy & the love of symmetry.

An excellent book on an elusive subject, well worth the read. If you know of anyone who has moss in their gardens or moss on their minds, this is the book for them!

Also by George Schenk: Rock Gardens, The Complete Shade Gardener & Gardening with Friends.
(07/23/00)

Rebecca