Book Review - Shrouded in Light

 By Kevin Philip Williams & Michael Guidi

For the last few months I have been systematically reading my library of garden books.   With my morning cup of coffee I read front cover to back the many gardening books I have collected.

This is not a typical gardening book.  It's about exploring the shrub lands of the world with the thought to bring those elements into our gardens.  It's not really an ecology book either.  It is a mix of art, poetry and Nature.  Sometimes poetic, sometimes straightforward and a bit heady in concepts.  Yes, I had to look up "Chasmophytes", the plants that dwell in rock crevices at any elevation.

With passage that I fully believe like this - “built[d] up an abundance of dead biomass which is seen as a sign of neglect or mismanagement in garden settings “ pg 57

or

My style of gardening can be discribed as "game browsed shrubs" pg 74

or

“Forests are not always the question and trees are not always the answer. “ pg84

....

“necroarchitecture of shrubs” pg 110

Void of climatic doom gloom this is an enlightening and informative read  Keeping on top of name changes is an ever present professional task that this book also helps me.