Description

Writer Liza Ketchum invites the reader on a gardener's personal journey that begins and ends in Vermont. In settings as varied as the Adirondacks, a New York suburb, coastal Florida and Oxfordshire, England, she profiles the gardeners-mostly women, but occasionally men-whose techniques and wisdom influenced Liza's life in the garden. These early relationships shaped the gardens she created in a high mountain town; in a pocket-sized city yard surrounded by concrete; and finally, in The Last Garden of this memoir. Readers will meet members of Liza's family, as well as memorable gardeners such as Nancy Lancaster (famed for her English Country Garden style), fine artist Arthur Jones, and organic gardener and educator Helen Haskell. Liza shares the ways that gardens have provided beauty, comfort and inspiration throughout her life, during periods of change, loss, and renewal. Bobbi Angell's detailed, monochrome drawings illustrate the specific plants that trigger memories of Liza's life in the garden.

About the Author

Liza Ketchum is the award-winning author of seventeen books of fiction and non-fiction for young readers. Her historical novels include two with Vermont connections: The Life Fantastic, a vaudeville story from 1913; and Where the Great Hawk Flies, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for Young Adults. An ardent baseball fan, Liza’s most recent contemporary novel, Out of Left Field, takes place during the Red Sox winning season of 2004. She is a co-author, with Phyllis Root and Jackie Briggs Martin, of the forthcoming Begin With a Bee, a non-fiction picture book illustrated by Claudia McGehee. Learn more at her website: www.lizaketchum.org

A citizen scientist volunteer and climate activist, Liza enjoys writing essays on issues related to gardening, the environment, and climate change. Founder of the Meetinghouse School in Marlboro, Vermont—where she raised her two sons—she taught creative writing at the graduate level at Hamline University in St. Paul, at Rhode Island College’s ASTAL Institute, at Emerson College, Simmons College, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She and her husband divide their time between Massachusetts and Vermont.

Botanical and scientific artist Bobbi Angell draws plants at her home in southern Vermont where she gardens, searches for native flowers, illustrates books and works on copper etchings. Visit her website: www.bobbiangell.com