The Kinfolk Garden

September 7, 2020
In this gorgeous, aspirational work, Burns, editor-in-chief of Kinfolk magazine, collects “stories about nature as nourishment” along with photographs from homes across the globe to inspire people to bring more nature into their own abodes. Burns organizes the book into three main themes: care, creativity, and community, respectively illustrated by an Italian expat in Tangier whose garden is dedicated to flowers threatened by industrialization, a Tokyo landscape designer who’s filled his glass house with tropicals, and a Beirut-based entrepreneur whose latest enterprise is a guesthouse surrounded by produce gardens. Throughout are sidebars on garden-related tips ranging from the practical (caring for houseplants and selecting vases) to the twee (“how to talk to plants”). The photos, meanwhile, emphasize natural lighting and highlight spaces characterized by rough-hewn wood tables, hand-thrown pottery, handwoven cloth, and rough, pigmented walls. Adding to the aesthetic of understated chic, the featured homeowners usually sport stylish ensembles of chore coats, cashmere, and rumpled linen. Expertly evoking a mood of understated luxury, this stunning spread will have design junkies drooling.