title: The Landscape Diaries: Garden of Obsession
author: Gayatri Carole Rocherolle
description: For a divergence into a world of limousines and French chateaus, there's The Landscape Diaries: Garden of Obsession. Aptly named, this engaging tale reads somewhat like a private diary in which Carole Rocherolle, daughter of the late business magnate Lester Avnet, describes how she literally ran away from her privileged youth to marry a member of French nobility. However, after she and her new husband, Jerome, fall into the nursery and landscape business, they are no strangers to hard work and the rewards it brings. The book follows the 30-year trajectory of their horticultural development, including establishing Shanti Bithi Nursery in Connecticut, traveling the world in search of unusual plants, and the creation of their most important legacy, the private Steinhardt gardens in New York, complete with stunning color photographs. -- <i>The American Gardener magazine, July/August 2007 </i><br /><br />Gayatri Carole Rocherolle's book is a feast -- for the eyes, for the mind, and for the heart. It's a marvelously entertaining romp, written by an iconoclast who, simply stated, farms beauty. In The Landscape Diaries she's brought in a bumper crop. -- <i>Richard Cohen, columnist at The Washington Post</i><br /><br />This memoir is a surprising tapestry of an unusually rich life and an extraordinary garden, yet the small stuff with which day-to-day events are built is universally familiar. Stories of loving and losing parents, of family celebrations and the importance of 'we' in a marriage, and of personal growth through spirituality and exercise are interwoven with the process Rocherolle and husband Jerome followed in creating their garden and landscaping business, the Shanti Bithi Nursery, and establishing the incredible Steinhardt gardens in Bedford, NY. <P>Born into wealth, she an heiress to the Avnet fortune and his family residing in a French chateau, they began their garden career together in the early '70's selling plants in a deli parking lot. The ensuing years, filled with hard work, world travel and their vision of artful landscaping and attention to small detail were filled with success and yes, obsession. Bonsai, a Japanese Maple collection, rock structures, unique metal-work pieces and gorgeous landscapes are presented in color photos throughout. References to find sources to create your own are included. <P>This is not an ordinary gardening book, but instead a testament to the creative visions and kinds of gardens that will grow when people follow their passions and walk to the beat of their own hearts. -- <i>The Lexington Herald-Leader</i><br /><br />While I find inspiration in myriad things, two of the most likely sources are great friends and great books. My close friends Michael and Judy Steinhardt own an exquisite 54-acre garden featured in this book. Along with more than 400 cultivars of maple, the property includes woodland plants and flowering shrubs moss-covered bridges and ponds, and a collection of exotic animals and waterfowl. The photographs capture this garden's beauty throughout the seasons. As I'm developing my maple woodlands in Bedford, I hope to one day have my own bevy of birds. -- <i>July/August 2007 issue of The Martha Stewart Newsletter a Supplement to Martha Stewart Living</i>
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  Published by Evernight Publishing at Smashwords
   
  www.evernightpublishing.com
   
   
   
  Copyright© 2012 Berengaria Brown
   
   
  ISBN: 978-1-77130-179-4
   
  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
   
  Editor: Marie Medina
   
   
   
  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
   
  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No
  part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission,
  except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
   
  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
  events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
   
   
  
   
  DEDICATION
   
  In remembrance of Geoff, who taught me a lot about writing, and who adored
  flowers and gardens.
   
   
  
  RESORT ROMANCE
   
   
  Berengaria Brown
   
  Copyright © 2012
   
   
  
  Chapter One
   
  “Wow, this place is huge. There are three swimming pools. Three! And one has a waterfall and a
  beach. And there are