Farther Afield

An author who can describe his own garden as a ""living record of my successive enthusiasms'' will immediately strike a responsive chord in other gardeners. Lacy, gardening columnist for the Wall Street Journal and author of Home Ground, is a source of delight to readers interested in plants. In these essays, he takes us to a flower-seed farm in Costa Rica, the oldest American botanical garden, the British headquarters of a major international seed company, allotment gardens in Zurich, ethnic gardens near Miami and a vineyard in southern New Jersey that has survived in suburbia. He takes us into his own garden, too, pointing out his mistakes and failures as well as some favorite plants. Lacy discourses on garden snobbery, petty plant larceny (``finger blight'') and gardening books, and defends the place of annuals in the garden. For both active and armchair gardeners. First serial to American Horticulturist, American Photographer, Connoisseur, Horticulture, Organic Gardening and Garden Design. (May 27)