A place between heaven and the heart: A geographical interpretation of selected contemporary personal gardening literature

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration, conducted in the open-minded spirit of humanistic geography, of the geographical meanings of the personal garden space as it is portrayed in selected contemporary personal gardening literature. Through an interpretive framework based on three geographical metaphors---the personal garden as a microcosm, landscape, and place---the personal garden revealed itself to be a cultural, social and personal space, essentially human, as well as a biological, ecological and environmental space, essentially nonhuman. This fundamental human-nonhuman duality at the core of the personal garden reflects the human-physical duality at the heart of the discipline of geography, as such making the personal garden a space of particular geographical significance. This thesis adds a new type of literature, personal gardening books, to geographical inquiry and contributes to growing geographical dialogue on the topic of personal gardens. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)