The Invisible Garden

There ought to be a name for it. It being the sudden, irrational flight of middle-aged city women to homes in the country.

I thought I was singularly nuts, but it seems there are a lot of us. Some of you readers, even. You know who you are. And girlfriends, do I have a book for you.

Dorothy Sucher, a psychotherapist from New York City, became one of us the day she laid eyes on an abandoned millstream by an old blue farmhouse in Vermont. The house was a wreck, way too big, and a long way from New York. The grounds were covered in weeds and trash. And yet, she fell in love with it. (Is any of this sounding familiar?)

She chronicles the transformation of her land and her heart in The Invisible Garden. In the beginning, Sucher has many of the same dreams and fantasies that beset me now: visions of lush flower beds, a water garden, forest trails, a "writer's cabin" retreat. Along the way, she meets like-minded people who become part of the fabric of her garden and her life, learns how to go on after devastating loss, and makes peace with forces of nature that will not be tamed.

I picked up my copy at a library book sale, but it's available new or used on Amazon. If you find it pick it up, because reading this is like holding a little bit of summer in your hands.