Plant Cuttings

The green fuse: Essays in making sense of gardens by Peter Dale 2025. Reaktion Books.

The green fuse* by Peter Dale [which book is here appraised] is about gardens – not that you would probably have guessed that from the title alone. Fortunately, the book’s sub-title – Essays in making sense of gardens – makes its subject matter clearer, and underlines that it’s not concerned with gardening in any practical, how-to-do-it sense. Rather, the chapters of The green fuse “examine gardens and gardening in the light of other cultural activities, some very specific, others more general: the reading of books, the practice of religion(s), looking at paintings, listening closely to music…” (p. 14).

Given its more subjective – and reflective and philosophical – approach to gardens, The green fuse took me outside of my comfort zone. As perspective, whilst I’ve been quite happy to tackle books such as Gardening can be murder (Marta McDowell), and even The psychological appeal of gardens (Clive Hollin), Dale’s book was quite a challenging read. In that regard, it was more akin to The Cambridge handbook of literature and plants (edited by Bonnie Lander Johnson). Whilst that latter book introduced me to many literary sources with a botanical focus, The green fuse takes that to the next level and, additionally, deals with art, and music, and mythology – and more. Dale not only deals with those creative aspects of human endeavour, he – to a greater or lesser extent – assumes that the reader is familiar with the sources he profusely references in developing his insights into the relationship between those human activities and gardens. And that’s where the challenge comes in for those of us who are more used to – more comfortable with? – more objectivity and less ‘artistry’ in their plant reading.

But, for all that, it’s good to be challenged; you can learn a lot about how others view plants – and people – and your overall appreciation of plants-and-people is enriched. To that end, The green fuse will give you a much greater insight into the interplay and interaction between such human activities as painting, music, literature, and architecture in gardens. Accompanying that exploration there’s a great breadth of cultural references, from ancient texts and the Bible to 21^st century mentions of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil [Ed. – and you’ll probably never read The wind in the willows nor view Pink Floyd’s album The piper at the gatesof dawn in quite the same way again…]. The green fuse will make you think about the roles that gardens play in a very different light to the more functional – e.g., as providers of food – role that we might ascribe to them.

Having read the book, you will emerge from the experience a better plant-person. Not only that, but you’ll have had the great pleasure of reading some of the best prose about gardens (and related topics) that I can remember reading: Peter Dale is a wordsmith par excellence**, whose narrative is a joy to behold***. And that quality of writing helps considerably in negotiating the book’s subject matter.

Contents

The book’s main text – of approx. 290 pages – consists of an Introduction and 18 Chapters. The chapters are of two types – 6 Interludes (which provide Dale’s own reflections on places he’s visited), and 12 that consider – in considerable philosophical, subjective, and reflective depth – particular aspects of gardens and their meaning for, or interactions with, people. With titles such as: Mazes and Labyrinths; The Garden as Theatre; The Green Chapel; The Green Study; Garden Follies; Gardens and Painting; Gardens and Music; and The Garden Party, that selection of the 12 gives a pretty good indication of subjects that the book deals with.

Not only is The green fuse very well written, it is also well illustrated, with two collections of colour plates (35 in total), and 41 black-and-white pictures throughout the text. But, rather than just include these images as adornments that break-up the text, Dale has much to say about most of them. For example, he provides almost 7 pages of garden-related – and fascinating if maybe a little fanciful – analysis of the painting the Friedsam Annunciation (John Malcolm Russell, 1978). The book’s text and illustrations work very well together.

Supplementing and supporting the book’s main text is a References section, and an Index. The References consist of seven pages of sources (primarily to literary works that are either quoted from or mentioned by Dale) that are arranged by number and by book section – the Introduction and the chapters. The numbers here relate to super-scripted numbers within the text. The approx. 7 pages of two-columned listings in the Index goes from ‘Academy (of Athens) to ‘zoo’, by way of such entries as: Arcadia; aviary/birdsong; beauty; Brown, Lancelot ‘Capability’; childhood and children; China (influence of); conscience; cottage garden (style); death/ephemerality; Dionysus; Eden; enchantment/magic; escapism; fashion; formal garden/formality; fun; gnomes; Gothic (style); Graham, Kenneth; grotto; harmony; hedges/walls/fences; human nature; Impressionism; Jung, Carl; knot gardens; Lennon, John; Lloyd, Christopher; metaphor; myth; nostalgia; opera; painting (and gardens); Plato; Pope, Alexander; Renaissance; roof garden; Romanticism; rose; sentimentality; Shakespeare, William; statuary/sculpture; temples; theatre; time; Turner, L.M.W.; utopia; van Gogh, Vincent; wasteland; wilderness; and Yosemite.

What you get (a reminder…)

Although The green fuse is very well-written – it’s one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in a long time*** – it is quite challenging in terms of the concepts presented and the language** that is used. With its numerous allusions to literature, music, and art, Dale assumes a pretty high level of knowledge amongst his readers to be able to follow his arguments and prose. In that respect this is most definitely a book only for the intelligent ‘lay’ person. But, if you embrace that challenge, you will be well rewarded with Dale’s very thoughtful insights into gardens and humanity. In so doing, Dale forces the reader – well, this reviewer at any rate – to think about gardens in different ways beyond the more usual functional and utilitarian. Accordingly, you are introduced to – and can’t help but learn about – the more artistic side of life – especially music, painting, and literature – as they relate to gardens. Dale has lots of ideas about what gardens mean – to him. Whilst he happily shares those views with his readers – i.e., he tells you what he thinks about such-and-such – he doesn’t tell you what to think. But, many of his insights I found refreshing and persuasive; Dale is a very influential writer.

In case you’re wondering about the botanical side of things, although The green fuse is not primarily a gardening book, Dale does mention several plants throughout the text – usually with their scientific names – and sounds suitably botanically knowledgeable about them. His more literary musings about gardens come from a quite intimate and botanical knowledge of what is planted in them.

Something about sources…

For the most part, Dale writes from his personal perspective. He provides details of the literary [via in-text superscripted numbers detailed in the References section] or musical [by narrative within the text] sources that inform his views. As subjective points of view, his responses to those sources, or interpretations thereof, etc. are his own and really require no further references. Consequently, in doing what the books is intended to do, it is suitable sourced – which is nice to be able to say.

However, there are a number of statements of fact that aren’t sourced. Whilst those omissions probably don’t affect one’s overall appreciation of the book and what author Dale is trying to do, they are irritating – and will always undermine any claim otherwise to thorough scholarship. A few examples of statements that need sources are the following: “The classic maze has seven coils, or spirals, or circles” (p. 17); “The forest, in Christian history, is often (and archetypically) seen as a labyrinth” (p. 21); “He [Frederic Myers] went on, for example, to coin the word telepathy in 1882” (p. 139); “George IV (1762–1830), … mockingly but not affectionately known as ‘Prinny’” (p. 146); and “those 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi.) from Himalayan foothills to the Gulf of Bengal, planted by the British to protect their control of salt production” (p. 245).

Some things I learned

Amongst the many personal views of the author in connection with gardens and their meaning, The green fuse contains much of a factual nature beyond the book’s main focus. For example I learnt: the derivation of words such as poet, Yosemite (“America’s Eden” (p. 94)), landscape, Vauxhall, and nostalgia (and that it was originally considered a disease); that biodegradable wicker coffins were a thing in Victorian England (and were showcased in 1875 at a garden party “given by the Duke of Sutherland in the grounds of Stafford House in London” (p. 261)); what author Dale thinks of the proposed, but subsequently abandoned – after having incurred “astronomical costs” of “£53.5 million in planning expenses alone” (p. 178) – London’s Garden Bridge project; that ‘cockaigne’ (“the pan-European medieval conceit of a land of licence, plenty and easy living” (p. 277)) is a pseudonym for London; that the ancient god of gardens was Priapus (but who was replaced by Pan in late Antiquity). I also received fascinating insights into the construction of a lute and its relationship to plants and sound, the relevance of Jethro Tull’s seed drill to music and horticulture; and the revelation that “The children’s area of Kew Gardens now has fake, plastic grass”. All of which knowledge leaves the reader a wiser person – which may be considered the mark of a good book.

More broadly, and just as I learnt a lot of history from John Perlin’s A forest journey, so I’ve learnt a lot about literature, painting, and mythology from Dale’s The green fuse. Truly, an interest in plants can lead to unexpected insights into many other non-plant-obvious subjects: The study of plants is endlessly rewarding – and frequently surprising.

Summary

The green fuse by Peter Dale is full of rich imagery and language – which is beautiful and poetic, philosophical and insightful – and will encourage you to view gardens in a different light to the merely functional. As a thoughtful and beautifully written book – that is firmly about plants and people – it’s a pleasure to welcome The green fuse to the growing list of titles in the plants-and-people genre.

* As the author explains in the Introduction, the book’s title “is borrowed from Dylan Thomas” (p. 15), specifically his poem entitled “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” (see here for the complete poem).

** You will be introduced to a large number of words that may be unfamiliar to you (I certainly was!), e.g., exegetical; coevals; reified; geomantic; éminence grise; demotically; intuited; turpitude; fons et origo; agon; tympanum; apsidal; obligato (which looks non-English, but is not italicised in-text); gimcrack; carious; dudgeon; argosy; ogees; flummery; deracinated; hugger-mugger; exedra; shebang; purfling; hermeneutics; numinous; quotidian; Marian.

*** And the text is awash with memorable phrasing, such as: “by heavy industry being replaced by industries so light you wonder where the dignity once conferred by work has now gone” (p. 13); “He looks like a sailor of the old persuasion who can’t swim on principle” (p. 61); “Melancholy, the special gift of ruins” (p. 113); “These [London’s pleasure gardens, e.g., Vauxhall] were fashionable venues both for those who had ‘arrived’ in society itself and for the still greater mass of people who believed themselves to be on their way” (p. 229); On garden parties, “Clothes become looser, morals too perhaps” (p. 261); and “Priapus was really a bit of a joke, … a sort of Mr McGregor with his trousers down” (p. 270) [which remains one of the most bizarre images in any book].

REFERENCES

John Malcolm Russell, 1978. The Iconography of the Friedsam Annunciation. The Art Bulletin 60(1): 24–27; https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.1978.10787511