"From the evocative title of this heavenly missive, you might think you need to be a gardener or a painter to harvest the full richness of its many gifts, but you do not. You need only be human--as worried and full of wonder, as pained and patient (or impatient), peculiar and particular as all of us. This collection of careful color studies of botanical (flowers, leaves, seeds, stems) and botanically adjacent (think time worn stones, beach bleached shells) treasures is offered out to us by the knowing hands of a gardener, the refined eye of an artist, the time-tested taste of a cook, and the heart of a compassionate mother. On one level it is an encouragement to practice being present to practice paying attention and taking good care in and of the natural world, to practice really seeing; but on its highest level, it is a much needed (longed for?) reminder born of both joy and deep grief to live your own days (and thus life) in full color, in and out of the garden. A plea to savor and cherish every last living vibrant cell of it in the process: the extraordinary, the quotidian, the steadfast constants, and the heartbreakingly fleeting. A sometimes funny, sometimes sobering prayer to notice and celebrate all the variations and permutations of green (for survival), red (for ripeness), pink (for extravagance), yellow (for luminosity), orange (for energy) and brown--the foundation of all living things--in all their colorful diversity. As Lorene might say, "Yes, please." See for yourself.

You will never see your garden, food, art, sky, ground (life) quite the same again." -- Jennifer Jewell , creator of the Cultivating Place, Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden p.