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We regard gardens as our personal dominions, where we can create whatever worlds we desire. But they are also occupied by myriads of other organisms, all with their own lives to lead. The conflict between these two power bases, Richard Mabey suggests, is a microcosm of what is happening in the larger world.
In this provocative book, rooted in the daily dramas of his own Norfolk garden, Mabey offers a different scenario, where nature becomes an equal partner, a 'gardener' itself. Against a background of disordered seasons he watches his 'accidental' garden reorganising itself. Ants sow cowslip seeds in the parched grass. Moorhens take to nesting in trees. A spectacular self-seeded rose springs up in the gravel. The garden becomes a place of cultural and ecological fusion, and perhaps a metaphor for the troubled planet.
This is vintage Mabey, maverick, intensely observed, and written with an unquenchable sense of wonder.
Richard Mabey is one of our greatest nature writers. He is the author of some thirty books including the bestselling plant bible Flora Britannica, Food for Free, Turned Out Nice Again, Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants and Nature Cure which was shortlisted for the Whitbread, Ondaatje and Ackerley Awards. His biography, Gilbert White won the Whitbread Biography Award. A regular commentator on radio and in the national press, he was elected a Fellow in the Royal Society of Literature in 2012. He lives in Norfolk.
"[...] Mabey’s garden is a microcosm, his observational hand lens has a larger purpose [...] there is garden history [...]; there are literary figures [...]; there is memoir [...]; and there is a philosophical vein which directly addresses the core of what gives meaning to life [...] This is a book of many parts which is satisfyingly hard to classify. [...] Mabey’s impulse here is a [...] joyous one, driven by wonder at the life around him, delighting in the reflections which it brings, rejoicing in thought and language. [...] Mabey is a standard-bearer for plant possibilities and for collaboration between gardener and nature – the welcoming handshake."
– James Robertson, British Wildlife 35(8), August 2024
"[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
"Absolutely enchanting [...] With wisdom, wit, erudition and modesty, Mabey explores the edgeland between cultivation and wildness"
– Isabella Tree, author, Wilding
"Delightful [...] The Accidental Garden provides an overview of Mabey's evolved thinking over a lifetime [...] Richard Mabey is the doyen of UK nature writing"
– New Statesman
"A calming reflection on the enduring resilience of nature [...] 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
"Engaging and erudite [...] a great read"
– Anne Treneman, The Times Magazine Christmas Wishlist
"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
"This is Classic Mabey: witty and wise, mixing profound concern with the environment with delight at the way in which nature never fails to surprise us"
– BBC Wildlife
"This is part memoir, part naturescape and part gardening book. [...] there is also something much rarer in this book: wisdom. What a treat"
– The Times
"Part memoir, part journal, part treatise [...] this slim book captures it all. A thoughtful, lingering read"
– Elizabeth Wainwright, Geographical
"[The] literary grandee of natural history [...] here, we find the great man on home territory in Norfolk, mingling observations on the shifting boundaries between garden and countryside with reminiscences of younger days and changing attitudes"
– Country Life
"This is the elder statesman of nature writing whose books have led to a wellspring of environmental literature that is able to be at once intimate, investigative, scientific and beautiful. As he rummages around this pocket of nature that has come under his charge, Mabey constantly but calmly telegraphs the wider and wilder themes playing out beyond the boundary. The writing style – silky, flab-free, bright – remains irresistible throughout this slim volume."
– 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 [...] poetic and important"
– 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"
– Caroline Sanderson, Bookseller Editor's Choice
