12 h 10 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 12 h 10 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What can a patch of herbs and a flower-lined path tell you about the people who call it home?
In Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth, Alice Morse Earle steps into the dooryards and flower beds of earlier days. Drawing on old garden books, family records and gardeners’ memories, she explores what people grow, why they choose it, and how a garden becomes a living piece of home.
Seeds, roots and bulbs cross the Atlantic with settlers who want something of the English homes they leave behind. Within fences, walls and hedges, useful herbs grow beside favorite flowers. Earle follows these household gardens through changing tastes, as Victorian fashions push new and showy plants forward and old favorites aside.
What you’ll discover
- Gardens close to home Explore simple, orderly beds that belong to everyday households rather than grand estates.
- The working herb patch Discover plants used to flavor food, scent linen, make remedies and keep pests away.
- Flowers rich with memory Meet roses, lilies, tulips, hollyhocks and pinks through their place in household life.
- Plants passed between neighbors Follow seeds, roots and slips as gardeners share their favorites with relatives and neighbors.
- Old favorites, changing fashions See how Victorian tastes challenge familiar flowers and reshape the look of the garden.
Who will love it
For gardeners, history lovers and anyone who enjoys the small details of domestic life in the past. Readers who love plant lore and gentle, chatty prose will find herbs, flowers and family memories here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Old gardens were made by homemakers
- The old garden had a plain, orderly shape
- Herbs fed, healed and perfumed the household
- Favorite flowers carried memories and meanings
- Plants moved from hand to hand
- Fashion changed but the old gardens endured
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Jardines de antaño, presentados de nuevo
by Alice Morse Earle · 1901
Along box-edged paths, Alice Morse Earle reveals how a home garden preserves a family's memories.
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In short
Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth is a book about the gardens of earlier days, written by Alice Morse Earle and published in 1901. Earle was an American writer who spent her career recording the daily life of the colonial past.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Old gardens were made by homemakers
Earle begins with settlers arriving in New England, where gardens help them make a home. Settlers who crossed the Atlantic brought seeds, roots and bulbs with them, because they wanted a piece of the English home they had left. She imagines women tending cherished plants each day during the sea voyage.
She shows that the work of the garden often fell to women. They planted, weeded, saved seed and shared cuttings. The garden was not a luxury. It supplied food, medicine, scent and a little beauty to hard lives.
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What is Old-Time Gardens by Alice Morse Earle about?
It is a history of home gardens from colonial times into the Victorian age. Earle describes garden layouts, herbs, favorite flowers and the people who grew them, using old records and her own observation.
When was Old-Time Gardens written?
It was published in 1901. Earle wrote it near the end of her career, when old-fashioned gardens were going out of style, and she hoped to preserve their memory and lore.
Is Old-Time Gardens a how-to gardening book?
Not mainly. It is a history and a collection of plant lore, though gardeners can take ideas from it. It tells you what people grew and why, rather than giving modern step by step instructions.
The author
Alice Morse Earle
1851–1911 · American historian
Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911) was an American historian born in Worcester, Massachusetts. She later lived in Brooklyn, New York. She wrote about everyday life in colonial America. Her books included The Sabbath in Puritan New England (1891), Home Life in Colonial Days (1898), and Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth (1901).
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