Anna Pavord

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“The book opens like a {{w|Travel literature|travel memoir}}, with the author trekking after native guides along a snake-infested trail through a {{w|rainforest}} in the wilds of {{w|Guyana}}. Then — after a plant-gathering side trip with an apothecary in 1629 into the wilds of Kent — we find her riding "with {{w|Kazakhs|Kazakh}} horsemen through the {{w|Tian Shan|Tien Shan mountains}} of {{w|central Asia}}". Clearly, it is a member of the band of intrepid English woman explorers who will be leading us through the taxonomical wilderness.”

“All of my gardening coats have been my husband's cast-offs. He is sufficiently bigger than me for the coats to be roomy and snug. They all have the same faint smell of wet dog which I find strangely comforting and they are all well endowed with pockets. Why do tailors think that men need more pockets than women? Surely it should be the other way round.”

“For an extrovert April scheme of brilliant yellow and red, intolerable to a melancholy poet such as Eliot, combine a good clear-coloured {{w|Camellia japonica|japonica}} such as {{w|Chaenomeles}} x superba "Crimson and Gold" with groups of {{w|daffodil}}s and single early {{w|tulip}}s.”

“Though there are exceptions in all species, many useful border plants — {{w|Aster (genus)|aster}}s, {{w|dahlia}}s, members of the {{w|Asteraceae|daisy family}}, {{w|penstemon}}s — have foliage that is at best undistinguished, at worst down right ragged. Careful placing of foliage plants will disguise these shortcomings very well. They bring an outstanding variety of form to mixed plantings: fat rounded leaves of {{w|bergenia}}, feathery plumes of {{w|Artemisia (plant)|artemisia}}, stiff sword shapes of {{w|phormium}} and {{w|yucca}}.”