Eden Revisited

gardens...But...If you would rather immerse yourself in plantings that capture the mesmerizing, magical wildness of the North African soul and topography, you can do no better than to crack the binding of Eden Revisited: A Garden in Northern Morocco (Rizzoli), containing musings by Umberto Pasti and photos by Ngoc Minh Ngo. The book is a love letter to the property in Rohuna, a tiny village of 500 people on the coast between Tangier and Asilah...Ngo s ravishing photography is clearly less concerned with documenting a landscape although she accomplishes this admirably than with taking the reader on a lyrical journey through mists, golden light, pools of cool shade and glaring sun so bright it blurs the contours of plants and flowers. Her eye is exquisitely attuned to surroundings and conditions that help illustrate not just what has been planted but how it feels to be in a place where numberless species thrive.
But this is also a garden book written by an accomplished storyteller...Pasti weaves a rich tapestry of myth and remembrance. He creates imaginary characters and fictional histories for the individual gardens, terraces and plants found in this eden...Pasti s description...encapsulates the mystical quality suffusing the property as a whole, humming through it like the millions of creatures that crawl and slither under the earth." Jorge Arango, 1stdibs

"Eden Revisited is a poetic and dazzling work. New York photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo takes pictures that make you feel you are in the garden, or that you might touch or smell a flower. The author's descriptions are magical and passionate... The Eden of Rohuna is something beyond fashion; of course it is ravishing, but more importantly, the place contains the seeds of ideas about garden making that matter more than any precept about taste or style." The Telegraph

"Morocco is a country of delicious sights, from elaborately tiled walls to colorful goods sold in souks to lush gardens that defy the desert climate. Of that last category, one of the most dazzling is the world-famous Rohuna, cultivated by Italian writer and horticulturist Umberto Pasti in the countryside overlooking the Atlantic some 40 miles south of Tangier... The result is not only a snapshot of the diverse landscapes of Morocco, but also a glimpse into the mind of Pasti."
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"In the redolent photographs of Ngoc Minh Ngo, you can feel the shimmering heat of the baking sun, smell the rich Gardenia thunbergia, become dizzy at the sprawl of red poppies. Those of us enduring frozen winters in the north crave just such magic." Dominique Browning, New York Times Book Review