“FROM THE GARDEN: Growing A Wish List Of Books - Northwest Arkansas News”

FROM THE GARDEN: Growing A Wish List Of Books - Northwest Arkansas News

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 02:15 AM PST

FROM THE GARDEN: Growing A Wish List Of Books

HOLIDAY GIFTS YOUR GARDENER FRIENDS WILL LOVE

By LYNN ROGERS

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

We gardeners are easy to buy for ... just get us a gift certificate from a local nursery and we'll be as happy as can be. However, my friend Sharon asked me to write a column on my favorite garden book suggestions. "This will be easy," I thought, "but wait, it depends on the kind of garden book, doesn't it?" I've divided the books into groups and listed two or three of my favorites in each.

The first is the How-To group. My well-thumbed copy of Tracy DiSabato-Aust's "The Well Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques" is the best I've found. I attended her lecture at the Little Rock Flower and Garden Show one year, and what a surprise! She is a diminutive, blonde dynamo with extra curly hair woven into tiny, long braids.

Another of her books is "50 High Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants." Deborah Martin has a new howto book with possibly the world's longest title: "1,001 Ingenious Gardening Ideas, New, Fun and Fabulous That Will Change the Way You Garden - Forever." It is engagingly written and full of smart ideas. Also, the best book on organic gardening is still "Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: An Indispensable Resource Guide." The best how-to on propagation is Ken Druse's "Making More Plants." His photography is stunning.

My second group is ID books.

These are the kinds of books that weigh several pounds. My handsdown favorites are "The Manual of Woody Landscape Plants," by Michael Dirr, and "The American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants."

The next group, which I called The Classics, is more about the philosophy and love of gardening, rather than how to do something.

Allen Lacy is one of my favorite authors. I can recommend severalof his works full of musings and observations: "The Garden in Autumn," "The Glory of Roses, "and "In a Green Shade." Others in this genre are both classical and historical: "A Rock Garden in the South" and "The Garden in Winter" by Elizabeth Lawrence and "Cuttings from My Garden" by the great English plantsman, Graham Stuart Thomas.

If you love reading about how things were done in the past, for Historical Garden Writing, I suggest, "Old Time Gardens: A Book of the Sweet O' the Year" by Alice Morse Earle, which was reprinted in 2005. The original, from 1901, is almost like the Bible for gardeners working on historical restorations. A splurge buy would be the coffee table size "Once Upon A Time ... A Cemetery Story" by Jane Baber White about the saving of Lynchburg, Virginia's Old City Cemetery. Also, "The Once & Future Gardener: Garden Writing from the Golden Age ofMagazines 1900-1940" has articles written by people, primarily women, who had their hands in the dirt and plenty of practical experience. These include Louise Beebe Wilder, Grace Tabor and Mrs. Frances King, whose garden writings had a formative influence on American culture.

Funny books about gardening can be new or old. Art Wolk, who could be considered the stand-up comedian of garden writing, is the author of "Garden Lunacy: A Growing Concern." Classically funny garden books is anything written by Beverly Nichols, 1898-1993, a writer of novels and children's books, but his best loved are his garden books, fi lled with anecdotes about his cats and his curious neighbors. "Down the Garden Path," "The Thatched Roof," "Merry Hill," "Laughter On the Stairs" and many others are sure to delight you.

Native Plants, a big group in my library, include favorites like "Easy Care Native Plants" by Patricia Taylor, "Tough Plants for Tough Places" by Peter Loewer, and finally, the one I read over and over, "Hedgemaids & Fairy Candles: Lives and Lore of North American Wildflowers" by Jack Sanders.

There are also dozens of single topic books, such as "The New Book of Salvias: A Sage for Every Garden," written by Betsy Clebsch, an amateur botanist considered to be the authority on salvias. "Roses, A Celebration," edited by Wayne Winterrowd, in which 33 eminent gardeners write about their favorite rose, is accompanied by lovely original color paintings by Pamela Stagg.

Gift certificates are always welcome from catalog companies such as Old House Gardens, Brent and Becky's Bulbs, Gardener's Supply Co., and Gardens Alive! Gift subscriptions to garden magazines, like Garden Gate, Arkansas Gardener, and Fine Gardening keep giving throughout the year.

Well, dear reader, this is my final column to appear in the Northwest Arkansas Times. There wasn't spacefor my article after the merger of the local newspapers. Please subscribe to my Garden Blog, From Lynn's Garden online at http:// fromlynnsgarden.wordpress.com. You'll receive my articles, complete with my photos, straight to your own e-mail. You will also be able to post comments and ask questions. Until then ... LYNN ROGERS IS A WASHINGTON COUNTY MASTER GARDENER WHOSE ARTICLES HAVE APPEARED IN THE NORTHWEST ARKANSAS TIMES FOR 10 YEARS. SHE ENJOYS SINGING IN THE CHOIR, TRAVELING AND HELPING PEOPLE WITH THEIR GARDENING PROBLEMS.

Life, Pages 9 on 11/25/2009

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009