Tales from the Garden
Launched in January 2025, the HGC Book Group offers lively discussions
on garden-themed books at the HGC Greenhouse (when weather permits) or by Zoom.
The group is currently on hiatus and is looking for a new leader.
Email hgclubweb@gmail.com to volunteer or be connected with the book group.
January 11, 2026
The Garden Against Time
by Olivia Laing
(Via Zoom)
In 2020, Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants. The result is a humming, glowing tapestry, a beautiful and exacting account of the abundant pleasures and possibilities of not as a place to hide from the world but as a site of encounter and discovery, bee-loud and pollen-laden.
October 12, 2025
The Salt Stones
by Helen Whybrow
(In Person)
In the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Helen Whybrow and her partner set out to restore an old two-hundred-acre farm. … But soon after releasing a flock of Icelandic sheep onto the worn-out fields, Whybrow realizes that the art of shepherding extends far beyond the flock and fences of Knoll Farm.
— Milkweed Editions
November 9, 2025
The Last Garden in England
by Julia Kelly
(In Person)
From the author of the international bestseller The Light Over London and The Whispers of War comes a poignant and unforgettable tale of five women living across three different times whose lives are all connected by one very special garden.
March 16, 2025
The Botanist's Daughter
by Katye Nunn
(Via Zoom)
A wondrously imagined tale of two female botanists, separated by more than a century, in a race to discover a life-saving flower. In this spellbinding botanical odyssey … Kayte Nunn has so exquisitely researched 19-century Cornwall and Chile you can almost smell the fragrance of the flowers, the touch of the flora on your fingertips.
— Goodreads
February 16, 2025
The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
(Via Zoom)
When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle’s great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets ... Then Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. With the help of two unexpected companions, Mary discovers a way in—and becomes determined to bring the garden back to life.
— Thriftbooks
(The edition pictured here was illustrated by Vermonter Tasha Tudor. Tovah Martin, our February 2025 Montshire speaker, wrote the book Tasha Tudor’s Gardens.)
January 19, 2025
The Serviceberry
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
(Via Zoom)
As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most?
— Amazon
Check back later
for the next selection.
February 8, 2026
The Heirloom Garden
by Julia Kelly
(Via Zoom)
In her inimitable heartwarming style, Viola Shipman’s brand-new novel follows two women, separated by a generation but equally scarred by war, who find hope, meaning, and friendship through a garden of flowers.
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