She was writing about some of the most beautiful homes and gardens in Southern California when Debra Lee Baldwin noticed that more and more designers were using succulents in landscape designs.

Not only did they go well with the arid climate, but their lines and colors mixed well with contemporary architecture and its dramatic lines.

And, like so many of us who write about gardens, she began to purchase them for her own garden.

"It has become politically incorrect out here to have a lawn," said the author of the new book, "Succulent Container Gardens."

Succulents are the answer. "They like water and they look more lush and lovely when they get it. But they will make it through dry weather. They will hunker down and drain their leaves."

 Photo credits: Debra Lee Baldwin

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Succulent Containers Gardens" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: Garden books
        

Square-foot gardening, the inspiration of Mel Bartholomew, is the way to go for all gardeners, I think, but especially beginners.

The civil engineer-turned-gardener came up with the space-saving idea of dividing a raised bed into square-foot grids and planting in each grid.  There is ease as well as increased productivity in his method.

He has written two books and established a Web site to explain his method, and now Bartholomew has published a square-foot cookbook to go with his square-foot gardening book: "All New Square Foot Gardening Cookbook."

I have three copies of his new cookbook and I'd love to share. I will randomly select from among those posting comments and send out the books. Get typing!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Categories: Garden books
        

Garden Variety is lucky to have an extra copy of the new book, Grocery Gardening, to share with readers.

The book, a soup-to-nuts guide to growing, cooking and preserving your own fruits, vegetables and herbs, was produced in a social-networking collaboration among four garden and food bloggers who had never met, with contributions from their "friends" and "followers."

Continue reading "Free to a good home" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Garden books
        

Talk about a collaborative effort.

Grocery Gardening, a new book that takes you from the seed packets to the canning jars, was written by four women who have only ever met on Twitter.

But they pooled their knowledge of gardening and cooking and, in 60 days, pulled together this remarkably complete book - from pest control to preserving.

They used their own social networks - blogs, tweets and Facebook pages - to gather the best information from others and now, presumeably, they will be able to sell the book to their combined 50,000 tweets, followers and friends!

Not only can you buy this book, you can interact with its authors, too.

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Grocery Gardening" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Lives of the Trees" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

It seems there were as many best gardening book lists as there were gardening books in 2009.

To make it easier on Garden Variety readers, I have culled the lists for multiple endorsements, figuring those would indeed be the best gardening books of 2009.

So here is my list of everybody's best gardening books of 2009, more or less. Some I have already written about here on Garden Variety, so check the links.

Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart was No. 1 on Amazon's list of home and garden books.

The American Meadow Garden, by John Greenlee was No. 3 on that same list.

Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indespensible Green Resource for Every Garden, edited by Fern Marshall Bradley

Bulb, by Anna Pavord

The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession, by Andrea Wulf

Continue reading "Best gardening books of 2009" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

In my garden column today in The Baltimore Sun, I talk to "the tulip lady," British garden writer Anna Pavord, who has just released a voluptuous new book on all kinds of bulbs called, well, "Bulb."

(Look on baltimoresun.com for a photo gallery of a few of her favorites.)

When I complained to her about planting 150 tulips one fall weekend, only to find the following spring that critters had eaten every single one, she inspired me to try once again by planting them in pots -- with lots and lots of drainage.

I'd tried this once before and the bulbs rotted. I am certain that drainage not critters, was the reason for that failure.

I can place the pots, Anna said, to fill in empty spots in my garden in the spring when the tulips emerge.

(This solves another problem. I'd like to add more bulbs to my garden, but I can't for the life of me remember where they old ones are planted.)

I was reading the garden blogs when I found another suggestion from Judy Lowe, author of the blog, diggin' it.

A friend told her to plant the bulbs in wide, shallow bowls, overwinter them in a protected area, and, in the spring, dig similarly sized planting holes and slide in the contents of the bowl.

This also quite conveniently solves the problem of not knowing where to plant new bulbs.

But back to Anna Pavord's book.

There are more than 600 photos of Anna's favorite bulbs, from anemone nemrosa "Blue Beauty" to an incredible double page photo of allium shubertii (which I actually planted for the first time this fall.)

While talking to her, Anna described finding flowers blooming in the mountains of central Asia where they explode in color and then retreat into their bulbs to regroup for the next season.

 Not a drop of rain falls on them during their summer dormancy she said. Perhaps that is the reason why our tulips fade after a season or two...all that rain.

Anna was asked by London's Telegraph to name her top 10 bulbs. Keep reading for her list and her comments.

Continue reading "Never too late for bulbs" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

Stephanie is the winner of "The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants!"

My fellow blogger Kate Shatzkin, of Charm City Moms, picked her name at random from among the 10 Garden Variety readers who commented on my Sunday post about the book.

That is many more commenters than I have ever had before! Either Garden Variety is getting really popular, or everybody wanted this lucious book!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

Uber food writer Michael Pollan, the New York Times reporter who has written such in-depth and unsettling books about agribusiness and our food chain, was asked in an interview with NPR's Fresh Air what he thought of Michelle Obama's vegetable garden and President Obama's food policies in general.

In this interview with host Dave Davies, Pollan says Obama hasn't done much to take on the toxic health and environment effects of agribusiness, but he expressed surprise at the magnitude of the impact of Michelle Obama's garden.

Here is an excerpt.

DAVIES: You know, last October, you wrote a piece in the Times Magazine called “Farmer in Chief,” which was an open letter to the next president - the election was still going on then. And you essentially argued that changing the way we grow and process food was critical to energy policy and, thus, a matter of national security - you know, the way we grow and process food at an industrial scale and transport it thousands of miles drains energy, pollutes the environment and harms our health. And you said that it’s really important for the next president to take a lead in changing things. How would you rate President Obama on the challenge of rebuilding the food culture?

POLLAN: Well, I think Obama’s taken some very encouraging steps. I think that Obama has shown that he recognized the links between the way we grow food and feed ourselves and the health-care crisis on the one side and the climate-change and energy crisis on the other.

So I’m encouraged by some of the rhetoric. I’m encouraged by some of the appointments. There are some progressive people in the USDA, the Department of Agriculture. And there has been the new agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, has spoken in, you know, very encouraging terms about the importance of local food systems, the importance of farmers’ markets, the importance of organic food.

So all that is very encouraging, I think. But, you know, frankly, the most important thing that’s happened has been the garden that Michelle Obama planted, which has had a galvanizing effect around the world.

There’s now a garden in Buckingham Palace. People are planting gardens all over America. You can’t find seeds in garden centers, there’s such a run on gardening. I think that’s a very encouraging thing. I don’t think it is merely symbolic. And by the way, I think it’s very deliberate on the part of the Obamas. I think they understand that before you can begin to change this food system, you need to raise consciousness about it because for a lot of people, the food system works just fine.

There’s plenty of cheap and abundant food. The fact that it makes people sick, the fact that it takes an enormous toll on the environment, on animals, on workers, isn’t really clear to everybody so that there’s a kind of raising of consciousness that needs to happen. And I think that Michelle Obama is playing a very important role in that. And then you can follow, one hopes, with a different kind of farm bill that would encourage the kind of fresh, local food that Michelle Obama has been extolling.

So, you know, I’m encouraged. I don’t see any evidence that they’re willing to take on agribusiness in any significant way yet. I think what’s more likely to happen is that this administration will take steps to educate people on the value of real food and cooking and that they will also do things to promote local food economies.

(A young reader's version of Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: The secrets behind what you eat, will be in bookstores this fall.)

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote here on Garden Variety about a fascinating new book by Amy Stewart titled, Wicked Plants: The weed that killed Lincoln's mother and other botanical atrocities.

It is a fun read and the contest I ran offering five free books from the publisher was a big hit.

Amy just got back from a month-long book tour, and her fans filled her in on more wicked plants. She writes about what she learned on her blog, Garden Rant.

Read about the plant that can blind you.... Ok maybe not completely blind...and the unpronounceable disease you can get from rose thorns.

Have fun!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

 Photo credit: The English Garden

My neighbor Bob, who is one of my gardening mentors, told me after several failed attempts to grow foxglove and delphiniums that I did not have an English garden and there was nothing I could do to grow one in the heat and humidity of Maryland.

I gave in and planted Echinecea and Russian sage instead, but that did nothing to dampen my desire to have the kind of garden you find in the countryside of England - or in the Pacific Northwest for that matter.

That's why this coffee table book, The English Garden, published by Phaidon Press, is so wonderful.

It is a collection of pictures from 100 English gardens - from a painting of Sir Thomas More's family, against the backdrop of a classic Tudor garden, to the National Lottery Garden, decorated with colorful steel spheres inspired by the numbered balls in England's National Lottery.

The perfect book for a rainy Sunday afternoon - and a cuppa tea.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

As a child, he called it "the Ranch."

Those who lived in San Simeon, at the bottom of the hill, called it Hearst's Castle.

Its formal name was La Cuesta Encantada, "The Enchanted Hill.

It was the result of a collaboration between William Randolph Hearst and architect Julia Morgan that lasted 30 years.

In Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and The Land, author Victoria Kastner and photographer Victoria Garagliano focus on the formal and informal gardens from the beginning of their construction to the present. It is the story of one of California's unspoiled treasures.

The estate features two spectacular swimming pools, 120 acres of luxuriant gardens, and 450 square miles of pristine coastal landscape. From the 1920s through the 1940s, Hearst and actress Marion Davies hosted the country's elite here, encouraging them to enjoy the outdoors.

Kastner, San Simeon's historian, calls on original drawings by Morgan and previously unpublished correspondence between her and the wealthy publisher to tell the story of the meeting of two great minds - and great imaginations - in the mountains above the California coast.

Anyone who has seen the film "Citizen Kane" and recalls the forbidding Xanadu, which was to represent San Simeon in Orson Well's dark biopic of Hearst, will realize just how wrong he got it when they open the pages of this beautiful book.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

I have five copies of Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart to give away here on Garden Variety and only two readers have stepped up to post a comment for a chance to win one of them.

Jump in, Garden Variety readers!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Garden books
        

Those of us who garden on the Internet know Amy Stewart from the blogs Garden Rant and Dirt.

But she is also a gifted writer and her new book is a fun one: Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities.

Stewart has put together a list of menacing botanicals: from a tree that sheds poison daggers to a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes intolerable pain to a leaf that started a war.

 "Within the plant kingdom lurk unfathomable evils," writes Stewart, who keeps her own garden of poison plants. 

She loves plants, she writes, but she never turns her back on them. Just because they are "natural" doesn't mean they are safe.

This is a fun book, but also one that carries a word - many words - to the wise.

The publisher, Algonquin Books, is kindly offering a free copy of this book to five randomly selected Garden Variety readers. Post a comment and include your e-mail address so I can contact the winners. Don't worry, I won't share your e-mail with anyone else.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Garden books
        

I have two more copies of What Can I Do With My Herbs? for a pair of randomly selected readers.

I wrote about this delightfully helpful book by Judy Barrett a couple of weeks ago, gave away a copy, and the publishers, Texas A&M University Press, were kind enough to send a couple more to give away.

Post a comment and include your e-mail address so I can contact the winners. Don't worry, I won't share your e-mail with anyone else.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Garden books
        

Garden Design magazine gets the first look at new gardening books. Here's their new Top 10.

1. Plant-Driven Design: Creating Gardens That Honor Plants, Place, and Spirit by Scott Ogden & Lauren Springer Ogden (Timber Press)

The Ogdens put plants first when designing gardens and have assembled a photo-rich book filled with plant ideas, where they'd best flourish and in what kind of gardens. Their holistic approach embraces people, places and the natural world.

2. Sean Conway's Cultivating Life: 125 Projects for Backyard Living by Sean Conway & Lee Alan Buttala (Artisan Books)

Be warned: Flip open this book and you won't be able to resist beginning a new project. The step-by-step instructions, materials, tools lists and the full-color photos mean you'll likely finish the project too.

3. Organic Crops in Pots: How to Grow Your Own Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell (Cico Books)

If you think you don't have space to grow your own food, think again. This book debunks that notion with practical and beautiful ideas for growing organic crops in containers. Photos of lusty bunches of mint evoke a perfect mojito, and red lettuce and shiso grown in enamel tins translate to a lightly dressed summer salad dressed.

4. Organic Kitchen Garden by Juliet Roberts, photographs by Gavin Kingcome (Conran Octopus)

This book? Gorgeous, informative and totally enticing. Author Juliet Roberts teams up with gardening guru Mike Thurlow to present a definitive guide for all gardeners interested in the art of organic-vegetable growing. The book includes monthly lists to remind you of which jobs need doing, what to expect from your garden, and tips on assessing your plot and crop rotation.

5. The Family Kitchen Garden: How to Plant, Grow, and Cook Together by Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner and Annettte Wendland (Timber Press)

We love this book's approach to gardening as a family and including kids in the joys of planning, designing, growing and harvesting a garden, and then cooking and eating its bounty. Includes monthly task lists, harvesting, uses and recipes.

6. The Container Gardener's Bible: A Step-by-Step Guide to Growing in all Kinds of Containers, Conditions and Locations by Joanna K. Harrison and Miranda Smith (Rodale Books)

Whether you have a small-space garden or just love containers, you'll find everything you need to know to create plant combinations, mix the right soils, address the level of care you are willing (and able) to devote to your containers and determine the tools you'll need. 

7. The All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening (Reader's Digest Trade Publishing)

This tome is big, color-coded by zone and filled with charts and pictures. Need we say more? Did we mention that this revised and updated edition is now all-organic?

8. Perennial Companions: 100 Dazzling Plant Combinations for Every Season by Tom Fischer, photographs by Richard Bloom & Adrian Bloom (Timber Press)

In this easy-to-tote garden companion, Tom Fisher not only shares his favorite combinations, but also offers the conditions and care required and indicates when the combination reaches its peak of beauty.

Modern garden design is all about repetition — that's why we love Calhoun's mission to combine six kinds of plants or fewer. The photos and organization of this book make for straightforward execution of ideas that appear complicated. Plant and repeat!

Here you'll find more than 4,000 color and planting combinations. This is the reference book your library can't do without. 

(The New York Times has also released its list of the best gardening books of the season.)

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

Garden Variety readers are very patient people!

On a recent Sunday, I posted about Judy Barrett's book, What Can I Do With My Herbs and promised a copy of the book to a randomly selected commentor on Garden Variety.

I've been on vacation, but I am back at work, and my colleague Kate Shatzkin of Charm City Moms was kind enough to pick the name of the winner out of a hat!

And it is Dan and Deanna, faithful readers and posters here on Garden Variety.

The book is in the mail, guys!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

Last Sunday in Gardening from the Couch, I wrote that there are three kinds of garden books: coffee table books with pictures of gardens you will never have; inspirational books filled with thoughts you never have and really useful books.

Julie Moir Messervy's Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love is one of those coffee table books with pictures of gardens you will never have.

The author makes the quite sensible point that we spend like crazy on the inside of our homes,  executing with confidence our ideas for what we want the rooms to look like.

But we don't give our outside spaces the same attention or the same resources. Our yards are "rooms," too, but we settle for a shade tree and some foundation plants.

She makes the point, correctly I think, that we don't have the same kind of confidence when it comes to "decorating" our yards. And she maps out for us a 6-step approach for overcoming that hesitation and creating a "home outside."

Nice try.

This is a great book to page through on a sunny Sunday afternoon. And if you are even an amateur landscape designer, you will learn a great deal.

But if you are a trial and error gardener like me - mostly error - you are never going to have the lush, lavish outdoor spaces in these pictures, and the book is likely to make you discontent.

That's the way it makes me feel, anyway.

I take away from these books what I can: a small idea here and there for plant combinations or garden accessories. Something I can actually get my head around and, maybe, do in my own garden.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

Garden books come in a couple of different varieties.

Coffee table books filled with pictures of beautiful gardens that you will never have.

Inspirational books filled with garden thoughts and sentiments you never have.

And truly useful books.

Judy Barrett's What Can I Do With My Herbs is one of the truly useful garden books. Like it's title, is direct and uncomplicated.

The author introduces us to 40 herbs, from artemisia to vetiver grass with lovely drawings. Then, in text with helpful subheads, she describes not only how to grow it, eat it and cook with it, but what creatures the herb will attract and deter, plus its medicinal and decorative uses.

Barrett also offers warnings for herbs that are dangerous if eaten, such as tansy. And she tells which herbs are good for your pores when steamed and what herbs are good for controlling erosion.

A truly useful book.

And one that can be yours if your name is randomly chosen from among those posting comments here! Please include your e-mail so I can contact you for a mailing address. Don't worry. I won't share it.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Garden books
        

On Sunday, I posted about Ken Thompson's new book, The Book of Weeds, and it drew a lively response.

Among the comments was this one from Patricia: "My daughter recently bought a home whose yard had been professionally landscaped.  One of the first days I was there she wanted to start pulling what she thought were weeds.  I tried to help a little but found myself seeing plants that I was not sure were weeds at all.  She said yesterday that she fears she pulled plants out that weren't weeds and left in the ones the were! 

"Obviously, "you can't judge a book by its cover" when figuring out what are weeds and what aren't."

Imagine my surprise when I found this missive from Thompson himself in my e-mail box. I will let him take over from here:

"Hello, I'm the author of The Book of Weeds. Despite writing about weeds, I'm only just beginning to realize the confusion they cause to many gardeners, and I was moved by Patricia's plea on behalf of her daughter: is it a weed?

At this distance (the other side of the Atlantic) I can't really help, but here is some general advice: any plant that seems to be making itself too much at home, or even bent on world domination, is probably a weed.

 But if you really have no idea what it is, there's no harm in leaving just one until it flowers, or someone else turns up who can identify it. Then you can either finish it off (if it really is a weed), or keep it if it isn't (and if you like it).

Given its previous behavior, you will soon have plenty more if you want them!"

Thanks, author Thompson. Isn't that what they say about weeds? They are perennials you don't want.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

From the author of Compost, here is fascinating information and advice on handling weeds - how to recognize them, how to control them, and how to exploit them.

The first step is to know your enemy, so weeds are identified and the survival strategies of various types is explained to enable you to get rid of them more easily.

Finally, an explanation of what makes a plant a weed, and what makes it a useful or even critical part of the garden ecosystem.

Each entry is simple and easy to read, including an explanation of why the weed "succeeds" and what to do about it.

Contest alert! I will choose from among those who comment on this post and send them a copy of The Book of Weeds. Remember to include your email address so I can contact you for a mailing address. Don't worry. I won't share you email with anyone else.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
Categories: Garden books
        

Diane Rehm, the excellent morning talk show host on NPR, talked Thursday about English gardens with Andrea Wulf, author of The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession.

It is the story of how a colonial American farmer with a passion for plants and a group of eighteenth century explorers, botanists, and collectors triggered the English obsession with gardens and gardening.

You can listen to a recording of this segment of her show by going to WAMU-FM's Web site and clicking on the appropriate content link.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

Lorette Lough considers herself "something of a gardener."

Whatever her skills out of doors, she is dynamite at the typewriter.

The Ellicott City author has written 71 books, with two more due out this year and eight more in the pipeline.

Her romantic-suspense novel Love Finds You In Paradise, Pennsylvania, has just hit book stores, and she is the author of the "Suddenly" series of books.

She has contributed essays to Chicken Soup for the Chocolate Lover's Soul and Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul, so it makes sense that she'd be on the short list of essayists asked to contribute to The Ultimate Gardener.

Her essay includes a brief history of gardening, but it also describes the joy she finds in gardening with her twin grandchildren.

"I try to keep them outside and active and gardening is a natural way to do that," she said in a telephone interview. "They get so excited over every little shoot, they act like they put a man on the moon.

"I love their excitement. We have lost that as grown-ups."

The book has some expert advice, but Lough says its appeal is the "Every Man" nature of the contributors.

"There are doctors, lawyers, housewives. Everybody gardens, it seems."

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

We continue the poetry theme here at Garden Variety....

This morning National Public Radio featured Stanford's John Felstiner, author of Can Poetry Save the Earth?, a collection of English and American poetry about the natural world.

The hosts asked Felstiner to choose one poem that would save the earth if everyone were to read it. He chose the folowing: The Well Rising, by William Stafford

To read more poetry from his collection, and to hear NPR's interview with the author, visit the NPR Web site.

The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through the deep ground
everywhere in the field —

The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer —

The swallow heart from wing beat to wing beat
counseling decision, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

Even if you do not subscribe to the New York Times, if you are a gardener, you might know Anne Raver.

She is a regular on "Maryland Morning" with Tom Hall on WYPR (88.1 FM) on Wednesdays. And she is also a neighbor, of sorts.

Not long ago, she returned to her family's farm in Carroll County to care for her ailing mother. Now she and boyfriend, Rock, (is there a better name for the boyfriend of a gardener? I have this idea that he does all the heavy work) are working the farm and you can read about their exploits, plus Raver's other excellent reporting, in The Times. She is also working on a book about the history of her family's farm.

Raver has been writing about gardening for a long time, and a collection of her essays was published in 1995 under the title Deep in the Green: an Exploration of Country Pleasures.

(The book is also available in paperback and I have a copy autographed by Raver for one of you. I will choose a comment at random from today's posts and mail the book to you. Just provide your e-mail so I can contact you for a mailing address. Don't worry, I won't share it with anyone else.)

Raver's book of garden essays has long been one of my favorites and I return to it often. She has the gift of connecting life in the garden to life outside the garden in ways that are both surprising and comforting.

Raver's essays are practical and informative, but it is when she strays a little way from the garden that they are most provocative.

That is the true strength of the garden writer, I think.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

The Coastal Plain, which runs from the middle of New Jersey, down the Atlantic Coast, across Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, is one of the most abundant provinces of the United States, in terms of plants, shrubs and vines.

In this new field guide, Wildflowers of the Coastal Plain, author Ray Neyland profiles 535 species of native flora, with beautiful pictures and capsule descriptions of each.

Some of the descriptions include historical information, such as how the plants may have been used for food or medicine in the past.

And there is also a step-by-step guide in the back of the book that will help readers identify plants themselves, by simply starting with the color and working through a process of elimination until they know the variety they are observing.

There are line drawings of all sorts of plant structures, a glossary of terms and a lengthy index of plants using both common and lating names.

But the pictures are by far the best part of this wonderful new field guide.

Cost is $34.95 from LSU Press.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

P. Allen Smith, host of the weekly public television show "P. Allen Smith's Garden Home," has published a beautiful new coffee table book, Bringing the Garden Indoors.

Going from room to room, he demonstrates how to the use the bounty of the garden to decorate inside your home with more than 60 projects and bouquets.

One of the most impressive parts of the book is Smith's instruction on how to make the entrance to your home - from the walk to the porch - inviting in ways that can change from season to season and make a stunning invitation into your home. Cost: $32.50.

Tell me about your favorite coffee-table garden book. I will pick a post at random and send you this copy of Smith's book. Remember, you have to include your email address in your post so I know how to reach you if you are the winner.

Photo courtesy of Clarkson Potter

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

 Tracy DiSabato-Aust – The Queen of Deadheading - has taught me, and a great many other gardeners, how to keep gardens looking sharp and well-cared for.

 She’s the author of The Well-Designed Mixed Garden and The Well-Tended Perennial Garden, which is the best-selling title under the Timber publishing imprint and widely considered the bible of perennial maintenance.

She’s taken a different tack with her latest book, 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants. All the plants are show-stoppers, but they have another advantage. They have passed Tracy’s test for toughness, beauty and durability.

These are plants for the busy gardener who doesn’t have time for staking or heavy fertilizing, wants lots of blooms and doesn’t need anything that has to be babied through a hot August.

Among her choices are a couple of my favorites from my own garden: Gateway Joe Pye weed, with its beautiful cloud like pink masses that tower 5 feet high in my garden, the delicate blue false indigo, and hellebores, which are producing lovely flowers right now.

The author suggests a plant that went right onto my list of “plants I want to order.” That’s Acanthus spinosus, Spiny bear’s breeches, shown here.

Cover photographs by Dianna Jazwinski, Richard Bloom and Adrian Bloom. Author photograph by Deb Goff.

Additional photo by Richard Bloom from 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants, Timber Press 2009

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books