Jamaica Kincaid combines her passions for gardening and literature in this long essay. She begins by explaining that her whole life, she has longed for a particular garden, a paradise from her mind's eye, but she says she never did figure out exactly how to accomplish this, given that her mental impression of the perfect garden is intangible.
She describes her relationship to horticulture, the curation and study of plant life. Her garden is in Vermont, and she discusses the little techniques she has learned in her gardening. She tells that gardening has unspoken rules, very similarly to feng shui, that prohibit certain kinds of plants from looking good around others. She wonders why her wisterias look so terrible on her stone terrace.
She continues on this train of thought by talking about a flower called Caprinus Belutus Pendula, which she says looks lonely in the poppies. Then the conversation turns to roses, and she analyzes the problems with own roses, and she wonders whether roses mean the same thing in a garden that they mean in life.
Along the way, Kincaid interlaces her plant-life essays with questions from her real life. She often thinks about the origin of the plants, and the human culture that exists in those places, as associations to her plants. She talks about women's roles, especially motherhood, and she discusses politics and power.
She ends by telling of an inspiring trip to the gardens of Kunming, China. She and her publishers travel there to enjoy the botany and she describes it in beautiful prose.
