baltimoresun.com

July 10, 2011

Gardening from the couch: English garden mysteries

The English garden mysteries are a series of books written by Anthony Eglin and featuring botanist Lawrence Kingston.

The latest is "Garden of Secrets Past," set to be released in August, and it tells of a murder near a country estate where an ancient monument holds a cryptic secret: an inscription in a code that has baffled the cleverest minds. When the police inquiry stalls, retired professor Kingston is called in.

English-born Eglin spent many years in advertising before defecting to indulge in his passion for gardening. In 1995 he started The Larkspur Company, co-producing a series of bestselling garden videotapes. The same year, he won Garden Design magazine’s Gold Trowel Award for Best Rose Garden.

His book, "The Blue Rose," won France’s prestigious Prix Arsène Lupin for mystery novel of the year.  Eglin is a member of the American Rose Society and lives with his wife Suzie and tabby cat, Pyewacket, in Sonoma, Calif.

The other books in his series are "The Blue Rose," "The Water Lily Cross," "The Lost Garden" and "The Trail of the Wild Rose." The books are published in the United States by Thomas Dunn Books, St. Martin's Press.

I love English mysteries and I love gardens, especially English gardens. Sounds like the perfect combination for me!

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

June 12, 2011

Gardening from the couch: Best gardening books

Grow the Good Life

One way for a gardener to escape this East Coast heat wave is to simply stay in the air conditioning and read about gardening.

Dominique Browning, author and former editor of House and Garden magazine, has created her regular list of best gardening books for the New York Times and here are the highlights.

"Grow the Good Life," by my friend and fellow garden blogger Michele Owens, is at the top of her list. Michele's book makes you want to start your own vegetable garden even if you are like me and prefer the farmers' market approach to fresh vegetables.

"The Conscientious Gardener: Cultivating the Garden Ethic," by Sarah Hayden Reichard, Browning writes, is a "modest and unassuming but powerful book" that argues that "gardeners should be on the front lines when it comes to recognizing the interconnection of mankind and nature." She says the chapter on soil is an excellent refresher for any gardener.

"Beekeeper's Bible: Bees, Honey, Recipes and Other Home Uses," by Richard Jones and Sharon Sweeney-Lynch is the bible -- it is literally that big -- of this new, hip activity, Browning says.

"The Book of Fungi: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from Around the World," by Peter Roberts and Shelley Evans makes the case for this species, which lives on decaying matter. Browning says that if you want one more thing to worry about, worry about the destruction of fungi habitats. Or simply buy some mushrooms at the farmers' market and sauté them in olive oil.

"Markets of New England," by Christine Chitnis should be a model for similar regional guidebooks, Browning says. The author makes the case that we should all be supporting our local beekeepers, cheese mongers, weavers, woodworkers as well as local farmers.

 

 

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Best gardening books" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:14 AM | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 29, 2011

Gardening on the couch: Seed, Soil, Sun

Seed Soil Sun

I am a garden writer, for heaven's sake, but when I saw what celery looked like in the ground, I was floored.

"THAT'S celery?" I said, sounding very surprised. It didn't look anything like the grocery store version.

So it is no wonder that our children -- living in a non-agrarian society as most of them do -- don't have a clue where their food comes from or what it looks like when it is growing.

"Seed, Soil Sun: Earth's Recipe for Food," by Cris Peterson is a new book for young people that helps erase some of that ignorance. This introduction to how seeds become food is considered a standout in a field that has lots of entries.

Clearly written in simple language, it explains how seeds, planted in soil, watered by the rain and fed by the sun become food. The photos by David Lundquist are stunning as well.

This is the kind of book you should buy for the future gardeners -- or vegetable eaters -- in your life.

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

April 3, 2011

Gardening from the couch: "Founding Gardeners"

In her new book, "Founding Gardeners," Audrea Wulf gives us a fresh perspective on the founding fathers -- men as passionate about their gardening as they were about liberty.

She writes that while British ships were gathering off New York, George Washington was worried about his gardens at Mount Vernon and was writing instructions to his manager.

She also describes how a trip to botanist John Bartram's gardens helped the delegates to the Constitutional Congress break their deadlock.

She tells us that during his years at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson tried 170 different fruits and 330 different herbs and vegetables.

At Mount Vernon, Washington grew grapes, apples, peaches, cherries and plums.

But  beyond a list of crops, Wulf's book is a fascinating and quite different look at "the land" the revolutionaries were defending.

As a bonus, the book has a lovely collection of portraits, line drawings and botanical prints.

Readers: I have a copy of Founding Gardeners I would be delighted to send to the 5th person posting a comment here on Garden Variety.

 

Posted by Susan Reimer at 9:00 AM | | Comments (5)
Categories: Garden books
        

March 30, 2011

Margaret Roach talks about her garden

Margaret Roach is the blogger behind "A Way to Garden," one of the best and most informative garden blogs out there, and a new book about her flight from life in the New York City fast line to her garden up state.

It is called "And I Shall Have Some Peace There," and I highly recommended it. Even if you are not a gardener, you will recognize her desire to get away from it all.

Margaret talks about her book and her garden in a podcast with Horticulture magazine's Andrew Keys on "Radio Garden."

Give a listen. Those of us who have been reading Margaret for years can now hear her voice!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:57 AM | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

February 27, 2011

Gardening from the couch: New books!

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Jerry Jackson

The time for reading about gardening is nearly over -- as the time for actual gardening begins -- but before we leave the couch and head outdoors for the spring, I have three books I am delighted to recommend.

The first is, "And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the fast lane for my own dirt road," by Margaret Roach.

The writer behind the delightful and highly instructive blog A Way to Garden writes about walking away from her job as editorial director for Martha Stewart Omnimedia after 15 years and moving permanently to her weekend home in upstate New York, where she learns more about nature and her own nature.

It is a story others have written -- leaving the corporate world to find a more genuine life and a truer self -- but Margaret's story is particularly appealing to those of us who know her so well through her blog.

Next? Amy Stewart seems to have found a franchise topic! As a follow-up to her fun book "Wicked Plants," she has written "Wicked Bugs."

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: New books!" »

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

January 4, 2011

Gardening from the couch: 5 for the beginner

Winter is the time to learn more about gardening by reading about gardening. And if you are new to gardening, a little help sorting through the thousands of titles out there is welcome.

Genevieve Schmidt, the author of the blog North Coast Gardening, offers her list of the best five books for beginning gardeners, and I heartily agree with two of her selections: "From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden," by Amy Stewart and "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden," by Tracy DiSabato-Aust.

Amy's book is utterly charming. And Tracy's thorough list of the proper care and pruning of perennials has been my Bible for a decade -- and she has a new and expanded version. 

In addition to her top 5 for beginners, Genevieve has a list of other books she recommends for gardeners - rookies or veterans.

Check out the rest of Genevieve's list and recommend your own go-gardening books for the beginners out there.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:00 PM | | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

December 17, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Christmas books

I have no idea why some people think gardeners are hard to buy for. I mean, really....

Among the items we love to receive at the holidays are gardening books (because they help pass the time in winter), and at this time of year, everybody has their list of the best ones.

Baltimore's own Ruth Kassinger has a book that's The Washington Post top 10 lists: "Paradise Under Glass: An Amateur Creates a Conservatory Garden."

It tells the story of her accidental visit to the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington and her journey through a number of "glass houses," until she was ready to create her own.

 

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Christmas books" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:00 AM | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

November 16, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Wicked Bugs by Amy Stewart

Amy Stewart, author of the top-selling "Wicked Plants," is ready to release her next book, "Wicked Bugs," and she is using this hilarious video to promote it!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 3:00 PM | | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

November 14, 2010

Gardening from the couch: "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating."

Elizabeth Tova Bailey's award-winning essay, "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating," became the basis for a lovely memoir by the same title.

It tells the story of Bailey's battle with a dibilitating illness and her relationships with the most unlikely of characters -- a small woodland snail.

Confined to her bed, she is visited one day by a friend who brings her a gift of a potted plant. The next morning, Bailey notices that a small hole has been eating out of the envelope on her bedside table, and she discovers that her potted plant is home to a snail.

She finds that she and her visiting gastropod have much in common: both are confined to their homes, both move slowly, but accomplish much. They share a journey of resilience and survival.

I have two free copies of this little book to give away, and I will make a random choice from among those posting here. Don't forget to include your email address so I can contact you if you win. I promise not to share it.

 

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | | Comments (4)
Categories: Garden books
        

November 9, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Amazon's top 10

Can we pick 'em, or what?

Debra Lee Baldwin's book, "Succulent Container Gardens," praised by Garden Variety early this year, is No. 5 on Amazon.com's list of top 10 home and garden books for 2010.

I liked Debra's book so much, I planted my own succulent containers this year, and I was thrilled with the results. Very dramatic plants with other-worldly growth patterns. AND I NEVER HAD TO WATER ONCE ALL SUMMER!

The other books on the Amazon.com home and garden list?

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Amazon's top 10" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:25 PM | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

November 1, 2010

Gardening from the couch: "Embroidered Ground: Revisiting the Garden"

My guess is, we will be seeing more of these: books about how aging baby boomers manage their gardens - a hobby meant for younger knees and backs.

I wrote this summer about Sydney Eddison's book, "Gardening for a Lifetime."

And now garden author Paige Dickey is set to publish "Embroidered Ground: Revisiting the Garden," in February.

She spent 30 years building the perfect garden and now finds that cutting back is what she must attempt.

New York Times garden writer Anne Raver, who lives and gardens in our own Carroll County, writes about the 70-year-old Ms. Dickey and 76-year-old husband as they work at cross purposes in their Salem, N.Y., garden: She wants to subtract, but he still wants to add.

Photo courtesy of Paige Dickey

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: "Embroidered Ground: Revisiting the Garden"" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:06 PM | | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

September 26, 2010

Gardening from the couch: The best of the bunch

Home OutsideThe Garden Writers Association held its annual convention in Dallas this month and handed out a batch of awards.

For your reading pleasure, here is a list of books, blogs, trade press and photography that garnered honors.


Gold Medalists

Best Book Writing
Julie Moir Messervy for "Home Outside," published by Taunton Press.

Best Photography
Roger Foley for the book "A Clearing in the Woods: Creating Contemporary Gardens," published by Monacelli Press.

Best Illustration
Sharon Lovejoy for "Toad Cottages & Shooting Stars," published by Workman Publishing.

Best Graphic Design
Robin Horton for “Urban Gardens Blog” published on www.urbangardensweb.com.

Best Book
"The American Meadow Garden," published by Timber Press.

Best Technical Book
"Rain Gardening in the South," published by ENO Publishers.

Best Trade Publication
“David Austin Handbook of Roses 2010,” published by David Austin Roses.

 

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: The best of the bunch" »

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

September 19, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Talking Dirt

Talking DirtThis week's addition to the gardening library is "Talking Dirt," by Annie Spiegelman, a California Master Gardener and garden columnist for the Bay Area's Pacific Sun newspaper, where she writes the Dirt Diva organic gardening column.

Here is a review this organic gardening primer from Booklist

"The problem with most gardening books is that they’re sooooo serious, with all the “do this” and “for heaven’s sake, don’t do that” rules. Who said they can’t be funny, too? Not Spiegelman, that’s for sure. While offering plenty of sound and sensible organic gardening advice, Spiegelman lightens the load (much the way prescribed soil amendments do) with quippy asides and pithy observations that make the experience feel more like a casual conversation with a good, green-thumbed friend than a lecture from a stuffy horticulturist....

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Talking Dirt" »

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

August 29, 2010

Gardening from the couch: The Little Bulbs: A Tale of Two Gardens

The Little BulbsBulb-buying season approaches, so let us recommend an appropriate book.

 We reach back in time to the garden writing of the late Elizabeth Lawrence for this week's selection, "The Little Bulbs: A Tale of Two Gardens."

In 1957, she published this delightful and informative introduction to bulbs. Out of print for many years, it is available in paperback from Amazon.com.

 In it, Lawrence talks about a wide variety of plants, including crocuses, species daffodils, hardy cyclamen and lily-family members such as Brodiaea, Bessera, and Calochortus.

The book springs from her years-long and heart-felt correspondence with Mr. Krippendorf who lives in Ohio and grows tens of thousands of bulbs in contrast to her "few" in the garden of her Carolina home.

This is a delightful introduction to the writing of Elizabeth Lawrence.

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

August 27, 2010

Calling all balcony gardeners

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Amy Davis

Are you a balcony gardener? A high-rise gardener? A porch gardener?

Fern, who blogs at Life on a Balcony, is writing a book about balcony gardening, and she is looking for pictures and stories from different parts of the country, including from us here in the Mid-Atlantic.

She has created a Facebook page for her book, My Balcony, My Garden, and a Flickr group, where you can post pictures.

But Fern is asking for a little more than pictures: a description of where you live, details of how the weather and the sunlight impact your apartment or condo garden, as well as other issues you deal with.

So, Baltimore balcony gardeners, get on it! We have to represent!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:30 PM | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

August 2, 2010

Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato

Ripe: The Search for the Perfect TomatoAt this time of year, when tomato lovers put tomatoes on everything but their breakfast cereal, it is hard to believe that there was a time in its history when the tomato was considered poisonous and too dangerous to eat.

Author Arthur Allen paid a visit to NPR this weekend to discuss the history of the tomato and his new book, "Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato."

Remarkably, the consumers' desire for tomatoes that taste great are changing the way the tomato is farmed. With the popularity of heirloom tomatoes and the general dissatisfaction with anything that can be found in winter in the grocery store, the tomato business is changing.

 

Continue reading "Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:28 PM | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

June 30, 2010

Gardening from the couch: literally

Gardening for a LifetimeFaithful readers know that Garden Variety has been on the shelf for a couple of weeks, battling a stubborn respiratory thing.

I took the opportunity of my enforced rest to read my copy of "Gardening for a Lifetime," by Sydney Eddison, who describes the accommodations she made in her (massive) 40-year-old gardens because of age and poor health.

Not what I should have been reading, I think. It made me feel my age and my infirmities all the more.

But she makes some points that I took to heart as I sat on the porch and watched the weeds grow during these three weeks.

 

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: literally" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:16 PM | | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

June 2, 2010

And the winners are....

Gardening for a LifetimeMy lovely co-worker Rebecca chose the three winners of Sydney Eddison's Gardening for a Lifetime from among the 11 readers who commented and the one reader who send me a message.

They are: Jimmy Wingett, Lazy Gardens and Eve.

Winners, send me your snail mail addresses and I will have the publisher mail you your copies.

Congratulations, and keep reading....keep reading Garden Variety, I mean.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:33 PM | | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 30, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Gardening for a Lifetime

Gardening for a LifetimeSydney Eddison has written the book no gardener wants to read, but every gardener should: "Gardening for a Lifetime: How to Garden Wiser as You Grow Older."

A gardener for 40 years in Connecticut, the author suffered the loss of her husband and her own declining health. These factors forced Eddison to re-evaluate her life as a gardener and make some painful, and practical, changes.

She writes in this book about the decisions and adaptations she has made, and her prose is illustrated with the delicate pen and ink illustrations of Kimberly Day Proctor.

The answer to gardening older? Sometimes it is as simple as hiring someone for a few hours each week. Other times it is as tough as downsizing your garden.

The jacket calls this book "gentle, personable and practical." It certainly is.

 

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Gardening for a Lifetime" »

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

May 16, 2010

Gardening on the couch: Garden Variety's book list

BulbGarden Variety has been asked to list her favorite gardening books!

It is a good thing she wasn't asked to list her favorite plants, because the list would have been much too long!

Anyway, No. 1 on the list has to be Anna Pavord's "Bulb."

Check out the rest of Garden Variety's favorite garden books!

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

April 18, 2010

Gardening from the couch: "Paradise Under Glass"

Paradise Under GlassIn "Paradise Under Glass: An Amateur Creates a Conservatory Garden," boomer journalist Ruth Kassinger tells the story of her journey from brown thumb to green, as she studies conservatories, tells their stories and makes one of her own. 

On a cold, gray evening, in the wake of her sister's death, her own battled with breast cancer and her children's departure for college, Kassinger wandered into the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington. It was a trip that changed her life. She suddenly found herself with a desire to create a conservatory inside her own home.

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: "Paradise Under Glass"" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:15 AM | | Comments (8)
Categories: Garden books
        

April 11, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence

Becoming Elizabeth LawrenceElizabeth Lawrence was the first woman to graduate from the landscape design program at what is now North Carolina State University and, in the early 1930s, was struggling to make a career for herself in Raleigh, where there was little work for a woman landscape designer.

Meanwhile, Ann Preston Bridgers, a Raleigh native, had become a Broadway sensation, writing Coquette with George Abbott and starring Helen Hayes. It became Mary Pickford's first talking movie in 1929.

 Bridges was a great nurturer of young writing talent and she struck up a friendship and correspondence with Lawrence, encouraging her write about her love of plants and gardening for newspapers and women's magazines and to put that writing into a book.

 

 

 

Continue reading "Gardening from the couch: Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:24 AM | | Comments (7)
Categories: Garden books
        

March 14, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Succulent Container Gardens

Succulent Container GardensShe 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

Succulent Container Gardens

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

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | | Comments (15)
Categories: Garden books
        

February 19, 2010

Square-foot cooking

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 | | Comments (10)
Categories: Garden books
        

February 2, 2010

Free to a good home

Grocery GardeningGarden 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 | | Comments (11)
Categories: Garden books
        

January 31, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Grocery Gardening

Grocery GardeningTalk 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 | | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

January 17, 2010

Gardening from the couch: Lives of the Trees

Diana Wells has a gift for finding curious information about the naming of plants and creatures in the natural world.

She is the author of "100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names" and "100 Birds and How They Got Their Names."

Her new book is "Lives of Trees: An Uncommon History," in which she explores a relationship between man and trees that goes back to the Garden of Eden.

Among the things we learn from her:

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

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

January 3, 2010

Best gardening books of 2009

Wicked PlantsIt 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 PavordBulb, by Anna Pavord

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

 

 

 

Continue reading "Best gardening books of 2009" »

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

November 26, 2009

Never too late for bulbs

Anna Pavord "Bulb"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 | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

November 10, 2009

And we have a winner!

The Bizarre and Incredible World of PlantsStephanie 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 | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

November 8, 2009

Gardening from the couch: The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants

"The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants" is actually the best of three other books: "Pollen," "Seeds" and "Fruit."The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants

All of them are pictorial wonders that use the best of science, art and technology to depict the anatomy of plants and their proficient reproduction.

This lush and otherworldly picture book ($29.95, Firefly Books) illustrates in the smallest detail the inscrutable work of plants making more plants, and fruits making more fruit, flowers making more flowers.

Robert Kesseler using an electron microscope produced the images. Wolfgang Stuppy and Madeline Harley of London’s Royal Botanic Gardens write the accompanying text with wit and erudition.

This is truly a look into the secret life of plants.

(And I will send this luscious book to a lucky someone randomly selected from among the commenters to this post. Be sure to include your e-mail. I won't share it, but I will need it to contact the winner.)

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

October 18, 2009

Gardening from the couch: A total White House weekend

It only seems appropriate that on the weekend of the fall White House Garden Tours, Garden Variety should take a look at a new coffee table book about the White House interiors.

"Dream House: The White House as an American Home" has been written by Ulysses G. Dietz, the president's great - great- grandson and a museum curator, and Sam Watters, an architecture critic.

The authors write that from 1800 to 1960, the most famous house in the world kept pace with the changing ideals of the perfect American house and garden.

It was George Washington’s idea of a country estate, but it morphed into "the imperial seat" of the larger-than-life Theodore Roosevelt. In the 1950s, the Eisenhowers were more middle class, barbecuing on the roof of the portico. In 1960, Jackie Kennedy redecorated the White House as a museum to upper class tastes.

There are hundreds of historic photographs, plans and drawings comparing the president's residence to other American houses, gardens and interiors of the same periods, showing how the White House changed with renovation, redecoration and landscaping.

Whatever you think of White House styles through the ages, it fitting to remember that it is a house with two purposes: to be a comfortable home-office for the president and his family, and an international symbol of power and prestige.

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

October 11, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Fallscaping: Extending your garden season into autumn

FallscapingWe are all better gardeners in the spring.

Our energy is high and the garden centers are full of things in bloom to capture our imagination.

Somewhere around August, however, we lose our gardening steam. Between the heat and the mosquitos and the droopy plants, our enthusiasm wanes.

When fall comes and the temperatures cool and gardening becomes appealing again, we regret that we did not plan better for this time of year.

Nancy Ondra and Stephanie Cohen, along with photographer Rob Cardillo, show us the way with their new book, Fallscaping: Extending your garden season into autumn.

This isn't just a pretty picture book of impossible fall landscapes.

The authors have including designs, planting guides and plant lists for a variety of places in your yard that can be "fallscaped." Plus container designs and groupings to carry your deck or patio through the fall.

In addition, there is a chapter on fall garden care that helps you settle your garden in for the winter and getting a leg up on next spring.

This is more than a pretty picture book. It is a pretty useful book.

($22.95 from Storey Publishing)

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:30 AM | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

October 4, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways

Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways

 My husband called me from Home Depot to tell me he'd purchased a shed. I called him out. He knows how I feel about sheds. You don't need more places to store stuff. You need less stuff.

"I wish I was the kind of guy who could call his wife and tell her I'm buying a shed," he said.

"You are," I said. "You just can't buy the shed."

If only he would buy a shed like the ones Debra Prinzing and William Wright have collected in their new book, "Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways." I would welcome him home with open arms and Manhattan.

The sheds in this book are not the kinds of sheds were you store the empty clay pots and the extra shovels and the opened bag of potting soil. And whatever other junk you can't fit into your garage.

They are just what the title says: elegant hideaways. With chandeliers and day beds and tables set for intimate dinners. No shovels here.

Prinzing, a well-known garden writer from LA, and photographer Wright have found sheds that reflect a variety of styles and purposes, but they all have one thing in common: This isn't your husband's shed. 

I had the pleasure of meeting Debra Pinzing at the recent Garden Writers Association convention, where her book garnered top honors. And she was kind enough to autograph a copy for me to give to a randomly selected commenter here on Garden Variety.

This is a beautiful book. And it will inspire beautiful daydreams.

 

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | | Comments (5)
Categories: Garden books
        

August 23, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Michael Pollan

Omnivore's Dilemma

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 | | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

August 9, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Gardeners do it longer

This from Randy Schultz Gardening newsletter: Want to live eight years longer than your urban-dwelling cousin who thinks she knows everything? Garden! According to Dan Buettner in his book, The Blue Zone: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, gardening is one of the healthy lifestyle choices that long-lived people engage in that helps keep their bodies healthy. Walking helps, too, as does getting good doses of vitamin D from daily sunshine and eating a veggie-rich diet. Yet another reason to grow your own vegetables!

 

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

July 12, 2009

Garden from the couch: Wicked Plants, continued

Wicked PlantsA 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 | | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden books
        

June 28, 2009

Gardening from the couch: The English Garden, by Phaidon Press

English gardens

 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 | | Comments (4)
Categories: Garden books
        

June 21, 2009

Gardening on the couch: Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and The Land

Hearst's San SimeonAs 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 | | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

June 15, 2009

Free books!

Wicked Plants by Amy StewartI 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 | | Comments (9)
Categories: Garden books
        

June 14, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Wicked Plants

Wicked Plants by Amy StewartThose 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 | | Comments (11)
Categories: Garden books
        

June 12, 2009

Free copies of "What Can I Do With My Herbs?"

What Can I Do With My Herbs?

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 | | Comments (10)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 31, 2009

Gardening from the Couch: Garden Design's Top 10 gardening 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.

9. Designer Plant Combinations: 105 Stunning Gardens Using Six Plants or Fewer by Scott Calhoun (Storey Publishing)

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!

10. Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations by Tony Lord, photography by Andrew Lawson (Firefly Books Ltd)

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 | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 26, 2009

And we have a winner!

 

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 | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 24, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Home Outside

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 | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 17, 2009

Gardening from the couch: What Can I Do With My Herbs?

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 | | Comments (6)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 7, 2009

Guest post: Author Ken Thompson

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 | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

May 3, 2009

Gardening from the couch: "The Book of Weeds"

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 | | Comments (12)
Categories: Garden books
        

April 30, 2009

Diane Rehm Show on English gardens

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 | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

April 19, 2009

Gardening from the couch: The Ultimate Gardener

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 | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

April 13, 2009

Can Poetry Save the Earth?

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 | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

April 12, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Anne Raver

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 | | Comments (6)
Categories: Garden books
        

April 5, 2009

Gardening from the couch: Wildflowers of the Coastal Plain

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 | | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden books
        

March 29, 2009

Gardening from the couch: 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 | | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden books
        

March 22, 2009

Gardening from the couch: garden books

tracy book covertracy

 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.

bears breeches

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 | | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden books
        
Keep reading
Recent entries
Archives
Categories
About Susan Reimer
Susan Reimer has spent 16 years writing about raising kids - among other topics - in her column for The Baltimore Sun. And every time son Joseph or daughter Jessie passed another milestone - driver's license, college, wedding or a move to a new military duty station - she has planted another garden. Now she will be writing about those gardens - and yours - here on Garden Variety.

Susan isn't an expert gardener, but she wasn't an expert mother, either. Both - the kids and the gardens - seem to be doing well in spite of her.

She lives in Annapolis with her husband, Gary Mihoces, who loves to cut his grass but has noticed that there seems to be less of it every time the kids pass another milestone.
-- ADVERTISEMENT --

Gardener's Supply Company - Deal of the Week
From The Baltimore Sun
Home & Garden section
Most Recent Comments
Photo galleries
Home & Garden marketplace
  • Sign up for the At Home newsletter
The home and garden newsletter includes design tips and trends, gardening coverage, ideas for DIY projects and more.
See a sample | Sign up

Stay connected