This volume contains the horticultural reflections of Mirabel Osler. She describes how her garden evolved and how, without meaning to, she let it take over her life. Along the way, she muses on, and returns to, many themes. Principal among these is her "gentle plea for chaos", for a move away from planning, regimentation and gardening with the mentality of a stamp collector. Osler writes of the alchemy of gardens, of the 19th-century plant collectors and plant illustrators and of the gardening philosophers, all fertilizing great thoughts along with their hollyhocks.