Grounding: Finding Home in a Garden

Lulah Ellender's garden in Sussex is an unruly but beloved place. It is also not permanently her own. When just a few weeks after losing her mother, Lulah is told that she and her family might have to leave the rented house that they have made their home, her immediate response is to freeze, to neglect the plants she has spent years cultivating. But before long she finds herself back in the garden, tidying, planning, and planting - putting down roots even though she may not be there to see the shoots emerge. Drawing on her intimate knowledge of this small plot of land in Sussex, as well as her visits to the celebrated gardens close by - Charleston and Sissinghurst, among others - Lulah explores the broader relationship between gardener and garden. From artistic figures such as Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf and Frida Kahlo to the long-gone inhabitants of a ruined village nearby, Lulah considers the ways in which tending the soil, growing plants, and tuning into the unceasing rhythms of nature can help us live with uncertainty and bring a sense of coming home, of feeling grounded, and ultimately of finding one's time-bound place here on Earth.

About the Author :
Lulah Ellender lives in Sussex, with her husband, four children and assorted animals. Her first book Elisabeth's Lists was published by Granta in 2018. http://www.lulahellender.com

Review :
A deeply moving book that begins in shadow - with a recently-bereaved mother under threat of eviction - and becomes a light-seeking, hope-giving exploration of what it means to cultivate a garden, a life, a legacy, at a time when so many of us will forever rent, never own, the ground we hold dear. Exquisitely-written and full of tender feeling... It is a book like a secret garden, opening doors onto alternative ways of growing and grounding a life We all make our little utopias in our gardens, our attempts to reclaim memories we never had, the futures we hope for implicit in seasons of growth. They are perpetually renewed, here too, in Lulah Ellender's elegant prose and her gathering of personal histories and defiant rites, as the author proposes that optimism which is the garden, our lives, our homes, our hopes, reborn again and again There are turns of phrase to die for in GROUNDING, and I felt like I was given a guided tour through the gardens of others by Lulah's curious eye. A much-needed book that offers a deep and moving insight on motherhood, letting go, and how our gardens can help us I read GROUNDING as I moved through a period of deep uncertainty; leaving my first garden to step towards a great unknown as a new mother with my small family in tow. Ellender's words delivered such solace; a quiet, soothing reminder that we make home through the way we spend our days - each season we pass through leaving its mark on us - allowing our story to unfurl. This story is one of resilience, honesty, hope and healing. Ellender leads us by the hand through all the gardens we both know and do not; reminding us that to sow is a way to carve a life out of uncertainty; to make room for the returning light, always An intimate exploration of what it means to be rooted in place and of how a garden can become a safe haven in uncertain times As Lulah sows, deadheads and weeds she explores her feelings of place and identity, fear and loss. A lyrical delve into how gardening literally roots us to places and helps us look towards an uncertain future with hope An admirer of Ellender's debut Elisabeth's Lists, I also much enjoyed this beguiling blend of memoir and cultural history, in which she describes how she found deep solace in her Sussex garden, even with the threat of eviction from their rented home hanging over her family. While her first instinct was to stop cultivating altogether, she soon went back to putting down roots, even though she knew she might not see the shoots emerge. The result is an absorbing meditation on the reasons that any of us gardens, which had me longing for spring (and ordering a shedload of seeds) Beautifully capture[s] just how important our own patch of ground is to our sense of identity Wonderful ... Filled with such a love, such an ache, the child-like need to be understood, the human urge to foster growth Glorious... I've read a lot of gardening books... but I've read very few as moving and literary as Grounding