It struck me one day. In French, we call nature morte (literally 'dead nature') what the English language calls still life. These words that I have spoken since childhood have always carried this brutal finality, the uncomfortable idea of extinction and decay. Still life, however, sounds gentler and suspended. Same paintings, two very different sensations. Sarah Miriam Peale, Still Life with Watermelon, 1822, oil on panel, 46.4 x 67 cm. Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA. Ita

Before you step into Garden Futures: Designing with Nature, prepare to enter a parallel world, both removed from everyday life and...