Gardening book chronicles Charlestonians travels to cultivate spaces on both sides of the Atlantic

An insatiable appetite for studying beautiful gardens and a lifelong fascination with cultural expression have inspired Anne Sinkler Whaley LeClercq to pen a collection of essays on cultivated spaces that have delighted her.

In “A Grand Tour of Gardens: Traveling in Beauty Through Western Europe and the United States,” a 199-page book published by the University of South Carolina Press, LeClercq shares her observations of numerous gardens.

LeClercq will make a presentation and sign copies of her book Thursday at the Charleston Library Society.

“It is a book that will transport you to a lot of different places,” says LeClercq, author of three other books.

“The people I am really interested in talking to are the gardeners and the landscape designers,” says LeClercq, daughter of Charleston gardening icon Emily Whaley.

In her book, new essays are added to those previously published in the Charleston Mercury to provide LeClercq’s take on gardens such as Monet’s in France, the Garden at Gravetye Manor in England and those much closer to home.

Images of her mother’s garden and some of the guidance she inherited from her are included as well.

The book is instructive, says LeClercq, retired director of the Daniel Library at The Citadel. Readers will get advice on reaching the gardens and where to stay when visiting them at the end of each chapter.