When this book was announced as the February selection for the
Garden Bloggers Book Club, I must admit that I was less than enthusiastic. I had never read a book of letters before, and truly believed I could go on not having read one without missing much.

I was wrong.
Two Gardeners had me under its spell from Elizabeth Lawrence's first letter. She's recommending some catalogs to Katharine, and she writes: "You shouldn't miss Cecil Houdyshel's little brochures....twice a year. I think he is in his nineties now, so you had better hurry." I don't know if she meant it to be a tiny bit humorous, but I got a kick out of it, and liked her immediately. Of the two writers, I have to say that I identified more with Elizabeth throughout the book---her constant thirst for knowledge, her delight over something as simple as learning what was blooming when, and her giving nature all struck me. I also grinned when I read her letter to Katharine from January, 1959, where she says "....I am interested in houseplants---not for myself---but I collect notes on everything that grows!" I'm "guilty" of this as well. I have the overflowing file cabinets to prove it
I enjoyed reading Katharine White's letters, too, but they lacked the personality that Elizabeth's did. I'm positive that's just me. What I admired most about Katharine was her willingness to admit that she didn't know something, and her ability to ask questions. So often, because I write about gardening, I feel like I'm supposed to know everything. When someone (usually family....) asks me a question about gardening, or a particular plant, I hate having to say "I don't know." When that happens, I end up running home to my books and filing cabinets, and searching until I can find the answer. And, if that doesn't work, it's a guarantee that one of my fellow bloggers knows the answer
Part of what made Katharine interesting for me was the fact that she was married to E.B. White. I loved the tiny little glimpses her letters gave me into the life of one of this country's literary icons. One thing that particularly struck me was when Katharine talked about her many health problems in 1969....back fractures, severe dermatitis, beginning loss of eyesight, osteoporosis....I can't even imagine. And Katharine writes to Elizabeth: "My goose is cooked as a writer and so is my hope for a book on which I was working ..." She fears that, as a writer, she's losing her voice as well as losing her health. And what struck me was at this time, E.B. was working on his novel,
Trumpet of the Swan. I read this book for the first time in third grade. The gist of it is that the main character, a male swan named Louis, can't make the noises that other swans make. But he struggles through, even learning to read and write, and learns to play the trumpet to make up for his lack of a swan song. However, lacking the song will make it almost impossible to attract a mate, and swans mate for life once they've found one. Louis has to learn how to be who he is, and how to attract the love of his life, Serena, without being like a "normal" swan. I wondered, when reading
Two Gardeners, if the shadow of losing his life's mate affected this story. I can only imagine that it must have.
I got inexplicable goosebumps reading the letters at the end in which Elizabeth and Katharine discussed what they would do with their letters after they were gone. Well, not inexplicable. I know part of that feeling was the dread of knowing that Katharine's letters would stop soon. I also know that I have no desire to reflect on my own mortality. I've had a couple of health scares in the past few years that have made me do exactly that, and it's not fun. I respected and admired that these two women were determined to make a positive contribution out of what is an undeniable outcome.
I reached the point in the book where Katharine's letters stopped, and I actually cried. By this point in the book, I felt like I knew them both very well. Reading the sentence "On July 20th, 1977 (two days after my birthday, incidentally....) Katharine White died at the hospital in Blue Hill, Maine." made me feel like I had lost a longtime correspondent myself. A couple years after Katharine's death, E.B. has a copy of Katharine's
Onward and Upward sent to Elizabeth, and she says: "I have been re-reading and re-reading ever since, with great pleasure and great sorrow. I can't bear not to be able to tell Katharine again what a wonderful book it is." And later on, when E.B. writes that "K's gardens are still lovely, but something has gone out of them that is irreplaceable---something she breathed into them because of her love and her care." Both of these statements of loss and love struck me deeply. E.B.'s assertion that her gardens just aren't the same proves what I've always believed about those of us who love gardening: the garden is a view into our soul. The particular way we place our plants in relation to one another, our particular quirks and preferences about color and form, even the way we choose to prune a shrub or edge a bed all give tiny glimpses into who we are. Someone else can take over my garden, but it will never really be mine again. Part of my soul is in the way I care for it, and it's the same for all of you, I'm sure. All I have to do is read about how
Kim leaves her sedums standing in the winter, and prefers them dry and brown instead of bright pink; or about how
Annie has had gardens everywhere she's lived, from student housing, to Illinois, to Texas, to feel like I know both of them better for it. And this is why we're lucky we can blog. We get to connect with people we'll most likely never meet. We get to share the triumphs and disappointments of our gardening lives, and very often those in our "real" lives as well. I can see your garden today, just as you're seeing it, and you can see mine the same. Isn't it wonderful? If E.L. and K.W. were alive today, they would be bloggers, without a doubt.
As I'm winding down here, I can make one small criticism of the book. Quite possibly, I'm the only one that was annoyed by this, but that's sometimes the case and it's fine. In 1967, K and E finally met in person for the first time. The editor states that the meeting was "a 'nervous moment' that apparently was in some way disappointing. Afterward, there were months of no letters. When they began writing to one another again, however, they glossed over the silence, and their conversation in letters seemed to take on increased intellectual energy, even as thier physical energy waned." I've read their letters after that meeting several times, and I've never gotten the impression that the meeting was "disappointing" in the least. Katharine even states that she "loved you [Elizabeth] at once as a person and wanted to stay on and talk for hours." I kind of wish the editor had kept her opinion to herself in this case. Katharine is in bad health, and on high levels of medication at this point. She can't even remember if she's written to E.L. recently or not. I found the assertion a little silly. Of course, it could be just me. If I'd edited the letters, I would have kept my opinions to myself. (Yes, I can do that on occasion....it's hard, but I manage

)
Overall, I adored this book. I know that
Carol has gone on to look for more of Elizabeth Lawrence's writing, and I know I'll do the same. So ends this long-winded review of
Two Gardeners