Writing from her garden on Queen Anne’s southwest slope—one of Seattle’s most beautiful neighborhoods—Madeleine Wilde’s voice stood out. The garden, Madeleine often said, is a metaphor for the world. Madeleine’s columns might deliver detailed advice on mulching one week and insights into the aesthetic pleasures of creating water islands the next. She was not shy about sharing her love for certain gardening books or reminding us there is a proper way to stack a woodpile (do it “right”). A column on the art of raking touches base with Van Gogh rhapsodizing on the colors in the sky. Madeleine’s prose, at times employing a canny wit, moves fluently between the practical and poetic.
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