Creating a Garden Retreat: An Artist’s Guide to Planting an Outdoor Sanctuary

Textile designer and “accidental gardener” Johnson (Travels Through the French Riviera) recounts how she transformed her “wild and uncared for” garden into an urban oasis in this charming scrapbook. Her approach is refreshingly low key: “If you make a mistake, you can fix it,” she encourages. Describing herself as “too impatient” to start from seeds, Johnson skips the parts of gardening that don’t interest her to focus on the part that does: the aesthetics. She finds inspiration in Matisse’s and O’Keeffe’s gardens, and covers gathering materials (ordering bare root plants for the first time, she was shocked by the tiny box of shriveled-looking roots that arrived), and creating swatch boards of blooms by month. She spills about her fair share of mistakes: first watering too little, then fostering a fungal disease by spraying a plant’s leaves rather than the roots, and planting ivy she intends to cover an unsightly wall incorrectly so that it grows in the wrong direction. While her approach may be a bit too laissez-faire for some, Johnson’s irreverent sensibility will take the intimidation out of the game for those looking to have fun. New gardeners big on imagination will find Johnson’s encouragement just what they need to get out in the dirt. (May)