A New York Times Bestseller

There aren't many books more beloved than The Tale of Peter Rabbit and even fewer authors as iconic as Beatrix Potter. Her characters--Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest--exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. In Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life, bestselling author Marta McDowell explores the origins of Beatrix Potter's love of gardening and plants and shows how this passion came to be reflected in her work.

The book begins with a gardener's biography, highlighting the key moments and places throughout her life that helped define her. Next, follow Beatrix Potter through a year in her garden, with a season-by-season overview of what is blooming that truly brings her gardens alive. The book culminates in a traveler's guide, with information on how and where to visit Potter's gardens today.

"Yes I have lots of flowers, I am very fond of my garden, it is a regular old fashioned farm garden, with a box hedge round the flower bed, and moss roses and pansies and black currants and strawberries and peas. . . . I have tall white bell flowers I am fond of. . . . next there will be phlox; and last come the michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums. Then soon after Christmas we have snowdrops, they grow wild and come up all over the garden and orchard, and in some of the woods." --Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter's characters--Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest--exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life is the first book to explore the origins of Beatrix Potter's love of gardening and plants and show how this passion came to be reflected in her work. Richly illustrated and filled with quotations from her books, letters, and journals, it is essential reading for all who know and cherish Beatrix Potter's classic tales.