‘Designed gardens … are no better – or worse – than those that depend on serendipity, the gifts of neighbours and of heaven,’ writes Louisa Jones in her latest delightful book on Mediterranean gardens.

For nearly four decades Louisa has been intensely immersed in the ethos of Mediterranean landscapes, keenly observing – sometimes from her perspective as a Canadian-born professor of French and comparative literature, and teacher of art history – but also, simply as a resident gardener.

In an environment that’s supported human activity over millennia. Louisa explains that Mediterranean gardening, just like cooking, can be ‘frugal and fruitful’ and reflect regional characteristics that constantly adapt for varying climes and budgets. Gardeners can share with the community, live in harmony with the earth and take pleasure in their own creativity.

This book contains the distilled wisdom of a lifetime largely spent working and studying in the Mediterranean. As she says, it is her ‘manifesto’. It is a petite, crisply designed book with superb, full-page photos that lure us into beautiful landscapes. Quotations from poets, philosophers, landscape architects, gardeners, ecologists and ethno-botanists are both evocative and profound, and references to critical thinkers include inspiring designers such as Nicole de Vésian.

Louisa’s richly descriptive words sometimes rattle us out of complacency: ‘… and why must grass be kept green? We love yellow as a colour in autumn, why not in summer?’ We’re left with myriad prompts, and a brilliant new energy to embrace both productivity and beauty around us.

Kim Woods Rabbidge is from Our Australian Gardens.