Andrea Wulf

Review: Mail on Sunday - Everything You Can Do in the Garden Without Actually Gardening by Philppa Lewis

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Review: New York Times Book Review - Behind Closed Doors by Amanda Vickery

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Article Kew Magazine: Meeting of Minds, winter 2009, The interwoven history of the Royal Society and Kew Gardens

As the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Royal Society both celebrate significant anniversaries, Andrea Wulf looks back at the long and often interwoven history of these eminent scientific institutions.

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Review Mail on Sunday: Sugar. A Bittersweet History by Elizabeth Abbott

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Review TLS: The Madisons at Montpelier and The Papers of James Madison

Review in the TLS about The Madisons at Montpelier by Ralph Ketcham and The Papers of James Madison. Retirement Series, Volume 1 edited by David B. Mattern and J.C.A. Stagg

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Review Literary Review: Great American Gardens

Review Great American Gardens by Tim Richardson, Literary Review, October 2009

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Review TLS: The Legacy of the Mastodon by Keith Thomson

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Article Kew Magazine, The Flowering of a Glorious Obsession, summer 2009

Packed with exciting, exotic plants, Kew has been a magnet for garden lovers for 250years. Andrea Wulf looks back to the 18th century to find the man at the heart of Kew’s success and Britain’s passion for gardening.

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Article Wall Street Journal: The Roots of a Gardening Obsession

25 April 2009

How an 18th century American farmer transformed England's approach to horticulture.

At this moment a dozen tomato plants are "listening" to taped voices through headphones that are clamped to their pots. They are part of a trial run by the British Royal Horticultural Society in their garden Wisley in Surrey, England. On April 1, the RHS invited the public to audition for the nation's most plant-friendly voice -- a sort of "American Idol" for plants. Forty-five competitors, including Sarah Darwin (Charles Darwin's great-great-granddaughter), read Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," recited poetry and talked to the plants. Then the judges whittled the list down to 10 contestants -- the voices the tomato plants are currently hearing. After 30 days the plants will be measured and the voice that "produced" the most flourishing specimen will be announced as the final winner of the Voice of Wisley.

Colin Crosbie, the superintendent of the trial, says the RHS is quite serious about discovering "how plants respond to voices."

The British are obsessed with gardens. Each year they spend almost $6 billion on their gardens, close to what the country spent last year on military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ten-year waiting lists to rent a tiny plot in inner-city community gardens are nothing unusual, and for some Brits, gardening has become so important that they speed date with a horticultural theme -- so-called "speed gardening" during which potential dates are judged by their green-fingered talents.

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Click here for accompanying slide show of 'Six English Gardens'

Essay The Brother Gardeners

Here is a little essay called "A Very English Affair ... Or Maybe Not?" that I wrote on The Brother Gardeners and the British obsession with gardens on Powell's Books website.

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