3 stars. It pains me to write anything less than a stellar review of Laing's work, but this book was a struggle to get through. Firstly, it was far too lengthy, far too dense with detail, for the takeaways. Even those, I felt, were buried under rambling names of flowers and plants. As someone with little to no gardening background, I felt as though these, at times, made the overall picture even murkier.

The Garden Against Time is a jumble of histories, pressed up awkwardly against one another. Constant namedropping and little synthesis made it difficult to follow. Laing's own experiences, like pandemic gardening and the decline of her father's health, made the book murkier. What was the point of these stories? The chapters were far too long, with purple prose meandering endlessly in a way that resulted in tens of pages to make one singular point. Despite some lovely takeaways, I was overall disappointed with the inaccessibility and drone of this book.