In this book, Iain Parkinson has carefully curated a fascinating collection of personal and evocative accounts shared by notable meadow experts from the world of science, conservation and the arts. The complex story of a hay meadow is told by the people whose lives are entangled within its intricate web, and in Meadow we hear over 30 first-person accounts touching on everything from wildflower and grassland restoration, basketmaking and weaving, pollinators and birdlife, water and soil, to hedgelaying, grazing, and archaeology. A prolific author whose output includes plays, essays, memoirs and fiction, Gladys Taber (1899 – 1980) is perhaps best recalled for a series of books and columns about her life at Stillmeadow, a 17th-century farmhouse in Southbury, Connecticut.

Taber has a positive, generous soul that reaches for light. She writes, "…I sometimes think that when people reach the day in which they see no good in anything different and new, on that day they begin to die. The will to live and the will to grow are the two foundation stones on which humanity is built. During all difficult days, I am determined to keep new interests going, lest I bog down in worry and anxiety. We need to use our time constructively, creatively, if possible" (209). Sound advice in this troubled spring.

The individuality of different meadows is their strength. On Landseer park, in the heart of urban Ipswich, wildflower-rich chalk banks created by the charity Buglife and an inspiring young conservationist, David Dowding, an Ipswich borough council ranger, are now home to scarce butterflies such as the dark green fritillary. Off the busy A19 between York and Selby is Three Hagges, a “woodmeadow” created in 2012 by Ros Forbes Adam, whose family has farmed the area for 350 years. The surviving hay meadows of the British Isles are an intrinsic part of our cultural heritage, representing a natural equivalent to our great churches, castles, and ancient standing stones. Those that remain provide a tantalising glimpse into the past to a time long before chemical fertilisers and herbicides robbed our grasslands of all their treasures; they are biodiversity hotspots, offering home and sanctuary to flora and fauna. Plantlife urges people to sign up to “ No Mow May”. Ideally a wildflower meadow should be cut (with grass cuttings removed) in late summer. But creating a mosaic of long and short grass in a garden is best for diversity. Leave grass cuttings in a sunny corner for grass snakes.

Stars. The only part I didn’t like was all the talk about her dogs. Which is fine, I’m just not a dog person. She certainly didn’t do it all of the time but when she did, I usually skimmed over most of that section. James Galvin is best known for his poetry, and that poetic bent really comes through in both his dialogue and his artful word pictures of nature's beauty. He makes some striking comparisons that created powerful images for me, such as when he describes a sunset "turning the sky as many pastels as you see on the side of a rainbow trout." I’m disappointed because I was hoping to love this publication; henceforth I doubt I’ll be reading anymore of her books. Forbes Adam has since created a charity, the Woodmeadow Trust, which is advising more than a dozen other community groups and landowners on woodmeadow projects, from Yorkshire to London. “It’s really exciting that we are starting to inspire other people,” says Forbes Adam. “Our aspiration is a woodmeadow in every parish.”

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That apple tree, if it still exists, has seen many more seasons. But here I am, two decades later, drawing again from the inner wealth of that chapter in my life. And as I read Gladys Taber today, I am once again entranced. Her nature descriptions are so evocative, so joyful. She tosses in her simple love for mankind, her kindly hopes for peace on earth (this particular book was written shortly after the end of WWII). Further, Taber often used the word, that, when it was unnecessary and the layman’s word, whole, to describe the whole earth, the whole field, etc. while other more polished words might be considered as a replacement such as the word, entire. She also used the word, foam, several times to describe certain aspects which weren’t particularly foamy. The loathsome word, like, was additionally a bit overused. In general her wording is a little too simple at moments for my taste. A favorite passage appears early: He built miles of fences, yards of homemade wooden pipe, a house, barns, sheds, corrals. He put up hay with horses and got down to scythe among the willows where the mower couldn't go. He never quit from the last star to first, proving that the price of independence is slavery. (p. 11). Iain Parkinson is Head of Landscape and Horticulture at Wakehurst, Kew’s wild botanic garden in the heart of the High Weald of Sussex. He began his early career in the woodlands, but with a love for the colourful and patterned beauty of nature, it was inevitable that he would fall under the spell of the classic hay meadow. Product restrictions: We are unable to ship seeds, plants, bulbs, inflammable products, food and beverages outside of the United Kingdom Xmas Delivery Dates

I am having a hard time writing this review, because this book is so spare, so intricate, so spellbinding that I struggle to find the words to give even a minimal conception of the scope and breadth and depth of it. Other have done a better job than I ever could.

That being said, this was a magically lazy-river type of book. It takes you through the year by month starting in November when the family moved into an old homestead in Connecticut that was built in 1690. The charm and character of the place outside and in is beautifully described. Her thoughts are often poetic in nature. She tells fantastically of the nature around her. Her attention to quotidian details, though, is what keeps me returning to her books: "What a sense of life and comfort there is in the sight of an old farm wagon creaking on a country road, the farmer drowsing on the seat, the horses moving as if they had forever to get there. After being shut away from life for so much of the winter, it is good to see movement again" (104).

The simple farm woman guise that Gladys wears so naturally is actually quite deceptive. Underneath, she is a very literary woman whose skillful pen continues to sow love into the heart of her readers forty years after her death. Helen Baczkowska of Norfolk Wildlife Trust is another meadow maker. Working with farmers, she is restoring lost meadows by re-seeding them with hay from roadside verges, virtually the last sanctuary for wildflowers in parts of lowland Britain. connections to Kent Haruf's books, Train Dreams, Annie Proulx' western stories, Honey in the Horn, Angle of Repose, Housekeeping ...If you don’t have a garden, join local groups (or your parish council) that manage parks, playing fields, church yards or school grounds. Encourage them to create pollinator strips or allow areas of long grass in summer. Many people still see long grass as untidy, but will be won over if it is filled with flowers and framed by short grass or mown paths. Any lawn or verge can be rewilded. Some remove turf and top-soil before sowing. Or just scuff up existing sward with a spade and a rake to make space for new seed. I use Emorsgate Seeds for native wildflowers, but if you can find a local seed source, that is even better. Mrs. Taber taught English at Lawrence College, Randolph Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and at Columbia University, where she did postgraduate studies. She began her literary career with a play, Lady of the Moon (Penn), in 1928, and followed with a book of verse, Lyonesse (Bozart) in 1929. Taber won attention for her first humorous novel, Late Climbs the Sun (Coward, 1934). She went on to write several other novels and short story collections, including Tomorrow May Be Fair ( Coward, 1935), A Star to Steer By (Macrae, 1938) and This Is for Always (Macrae, 1938). In the late 1930s, Taber joined the staff of the Ladies’ Home Journal and began to contribute the column “Diary of Domesticity.” Add native yellow rattle seeds to lawns. The rattle parasitises the grass and enables other wildflowers to grow.