America’s Love of British Garden Writers

Friday’s Boston Globe featured a story about an award that the Horticultural Society of New York recently presented.

The absent honoree turned out to be Houghton Mifflin garden editor Frances Tenenbaum.

Over the years I have read many of her books, so I recognized her name immediately.

The Society’s President Sara Hobel said about Tenenbaum, “Before Frances, the only garden writers known in America were British.”

I would agree.

Before the last ten years, many garden titles on my bookshelf were by British authors.

That, of course, only illustrates America’s longstanding fascination with the English garden.