"The deepest beauty of Debra Landwehr Engle’s Grace from the Garden (Rodale) comes not from plants but from the people: the life-affirming souls who tend the communal and individual gardens across the country - and far away as North Korea - that Engle visits and writes about.

Gardens “Satisfy a hunger for peace and calm and okayness in the world,” she tells us. “When we’re bombarded each day with news of snipers, abductors, murderers, terrorists, and war, it’s easy to forget that acts of aggression and destruction are not the norm. It’s more important than ever...to focus...on ordinary people who reach inward to find a mission, a passion, a purpose….”

When a troubled kid in Iowa can crow about the greenhouse she helped build at her juvenile home, when an Alzheimer’s patient in Oregon finds safety and solace in a community-sponsored memory garden, when a disabled person in Alabama eats a tomato planted with the help of local “GardenAngels,” that’s sustenance in spades."

Grace from the Garden

PORTLAND MEMORY GARDEN

The Portland Memory Garden has been featured in several publications, including the book, Grace from the Garden, by Debra Landwehr Engle. Here's one review of that book from "O, The Oprah Magazine" (August 2003, Vol. 4, #8) 

10401 SE Bush Street, Portland, OR 97266        friendspmg@gmail.com