The Accidental Garden

Absolutely enchanting ... With wisdom, wit, erudition and modesty, Mabey explores the edgeland between cultivation and wildness -- Isabella Tree, author * Wilding *
Delightful ... Richard Mabey is the doyen of UK nature writing * New Statesman *
A discursive, philosophical memoir about everything from the human desire to shape nature to what Mabey calls the ambiguous experience of gardening in the midst of an environmental emergency * Financial Times *
Part memoir, part naturescape... there is also something much rarer in this book: wisdom. What a treat * The Times *
Inspirational ... meditative ... an advocate for a new non-domineering understanding of the relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world * Spectator *
A crusade in defence of a natural world under threat ... Mabey's powers of nature observation, and his gift for translating them into words has made [his work] both celebrated and timeless * Sunday Telegraph *
Both instructive and exciting, often ecstatic... Mabey is a great, pioneering nature writer * Irish Times *
A lovely companion to Olivia Laing's The Garden Against Time, The Accidental Garden sees nature writer Richard Mabey on fine form ... The light touch in his writing and his gardening allows for a delight in the everyday wonder of nature * Observer *
A wonderful memoir... Every page is dotted with pearls of wisdom gleaned from his decades as a nature writer * The Times *
[The] literary grandee of natural history ... here, we find the great man on home territory mingling observations on the shifting boundaries between garden and countryside with reminiscences of younger days and changing attitudes * Country Life *
Part memoir, part journal, part treatise ... this slim book captures it all. A thoughtful, lingering read -- Elizabeth Wainwright * Geographical *
At once intimate, investigative, scientific and beautiful... Irresistible * Irish Independent *
Eloquently and succinctly written by an enlightened ecologist ... a celebration of the garden, its meaning to us as humans, our memories, our long lives, what we can leave for future generations * Plantlife *
These are wide-ranging debates that cover the gender-fluid nature of plants, decolonisation, migration, native/nonnative, reparations for nature through the lens of the wood, the lawn, the pond and the flowerbed. I felt like I'd spent a great afternoon, lying in the dappled shade of a garden tree, listening to Mabey muse on a life with plants. * Gardens Illustrated *
Encourages us to think less of conquering the landscape and more of sharing it with the myriad creatures and organisms that treat our lawns and beds as home * The Tablet *
Mabey is both literally and metaphorically at home in The Accidental Garden. It is his own niche that provides space and creative sustenance to range widely over many of the concerns that have captivated him over the years and, most importantly, it offers the space for him to reflect on how we can be good neighbours with the other organisms with which we share our planet. * Garden Design Journal *
An enchanting, meditative account of a garden and its lives -- Noreen Masud, author * A Flat Place *
Masterly ... This new work by the ever-marvellous Mabey exhorts us to pay our dues to the other inhabitants of our gardens accordingly * The Bookseller *
Praise for Richard Mabey: 'Visionary, witty and erudite * Telegraph *
Mabey is a national treasure * Sunday Times *
A superb stylist with profound tenderness and compassion towards the more-than-human world -- Robert Macfarlane
Our greatest nature writer * New Scientist *
Mabey is the kind of person you wish you had with you on every country walk * Country Life *
As in all his work, what comes across is [Mabey's] abiding passion for plants and the sustenance they give both imaginatively and spiritually -- Bella Bathurst
We are lucky to have [Richard Mabey]. He has changed the way we are with plants and made a loved world lovelier still * Observer *