Design & Lifestyle...

I’ve been neglecting my garden. Not in any serious way, mind, just that I haven’t been using it to its full potential: I have a small patio that could host a glasshouse, a play area that isn’t played with any more that I could grow some food on, and I could even rent an allotment from my local council (in fact, I am now on the waiting list). But the garden is only a part of the story, as Ian Lillington explains in his book “The Holistic Life”. A cross between a tale of personal, practical discovery, and a general guidebook for establishing a permaculture way of life, The Holistic Life has proved to be a very useful resource in my own journey of discovery.

Covering a large range of topics, possibly too large for an introduction, the book guides the reader through the ideas of sustainable growing, low energy living, rainwater management, ethics, healthly living and even global ecology. The problem with having such a wide spectrum of interest - I suspect Ian treated this as his one chance to say everything - is that the author sometimes slightly loses the plot in the process: for instance a discussion about vegetable gardening then launches, apropos of nothing, into 8 pages on the principles of passive solar design.