Garden Books Worth Reading--Garden Books Worth Cultivating

Among the many advantages of gardening is that its tranquilities afford one a chance to contemplate,? Richardson Wright wrote in his 1929 classic, The Gardener?s Bed-Book. He continues: ?Gardening with brains is, most of the time, a silly and useless affectation.
Anyone reading Bed-Book today will appreciate having the company of a congenial soul with a good sense of humor and the manners of a gentleman, but times?and garden books?have changed. There are new discoveries in the science of horticulture every year and hundreds of books keep today?s dedicated gardeners up-to-date on the latest techniques, hybrids, cultivars, and botanical names. Here are a few of the most noteworthy books?from growing bonsai to creating a garden of grasses to growing and using lemon herbs.

Totally Bonsai
A Guide to Growing, Shaping, and Caring for Miniature Trees and Shrubs
Craig Coussins
Tuttle
0-8048-3420-2
Bonsai originated in China and Korea 2,000 years ago. The author, who also wrote Bonsai for Beginners, explains how to select a plant and offers tips on feeding, pruning and shaping, planting, tools and equipment, watering, soil requirements, and potting. The author discusses styling and display?ways to create the shape of your bonsai?plus a number of relatively easy and popular bonsai species to help beginners start a collection. Growing them is an exacting task, but this book will help.

Mountains in the Sea
The Vietnamese Miniature Landscape Art of Hon Non Bo
Phan Van Lit with Lew Buller
Timber Press
0-88192-515-2
Admirers of bonsai will be fascinated with the art form known as Hon Non Bo, literally ?mountainous island in the sea.? It is a unique discipline influenced by the landscape of Viet Nam with its mountains, coastal scenery, and lush vegetation, reflecting the ancient Vietnamese custom of worshipping stones, trees, and rivers.
The first few chapters take the reader on a tour of Viet Nam to show its natural scenery and explain the historical and cultural significance of the art. The authors discuss the philosophical and religious concepts that affected its evolution, and then explain how to create a Hon Non Bo, giving examples of each step in the process?selecting a scene and rocks, making a shallow container, planting diminutive trees, and adding handmade objects like pagodas and bridges. Color photographs show Hon Non Bo from Lit?s own collection.

A Year in Our Gardens
Letters by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy
University of North Carolina Press
0-8078-2603-0
Lacy is the author of fourteen books, if you count the ones he translated and edited, and he wrote the preface to The Gardener?s Bed-Book in its 1988 edition. His garden is a plot of former farmland in New Jersey. Goodwin is a garden writer. They began exchanging letters in 1985 and met in Durham, N.C., where Goodwin owns a small nursery specializing in endangered cyclamen. Spanning a year, these letters discuss their hopes and fears, the importance of garden catalogs, the weather, Lacy?s ill health, the death of Goodwin?s beloved cat (he was buried in her garden), and, above all, their love of gardening.

Grasses
Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design
Nancy J. Ondra
Photography by Saxon Holt
Storey Books
1-58017-423-X
This profusely illustrated book (160 color photographs) offers twenty garden designs using ornamental grasses combined with other plants. The author gives advice on creating stunning color palettes that can be used as borders along paths and walkways or planted in pots and window boxes. The grasses can be grown in water gardens, on slopes, or to create privacy. Best of all, unlike your lawn, ornamental grasses don?t need to be mowed.

Paradise Found
Growing Tropicals in Your Own Backyard
Norman Winter
Tayor
0-87833-262-6
The renewed popularity of tropical plants seems to be an extension of today?s trend for expanded use of color in landscapes. Many tropicals, such as large-leafed plants, also add a texture to a garden. The bulk of this lavishly illustrated book is a list of 134 plants, each with a photograph and instructions on planting and growing. The author suggests garden designs to be used in containers and recommends tropicals that attract hummingbirds, butterflies, lizards, and frogs. Some of these Southern perennials can thrive as annuals in colder climates; he explains how to protect plants from freezing weather.

Heirloom Flower Gardens
Rediscovering and Designing with Classic Ornamentals
Jo Ann Gardner
Chelsea Green
1-890132-62-4
While some garden books tout the latest varieties, this one focuses on 300 heirloom ornamental plants, introduced to American gardens between 1600 and the 1950s. This diverse collection of herbs, flowers, shrubs, and vines is divided into two categories: ?ancient and antique? types, known as early as classical times, and ?middle-aged? plants, hybrid variations on the ancient themes that began to appear toward the end of the 19th century.
In this revised edition of Gardner?s 1992 book, she has added several new features, including suggestions for grouping heirloom plants, for transforming dry banks and wet meadows through the art of naturalizing, and for creating gardens that attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

The Village Herbalist
Sharing Plant Medicines with Family and Community
Nancy and Michael Phillips
Chelsea Green
1-890132-54-3
?Community herbalists are the mainstay of herbalism, the nurturers and protectors of good health,? the authors write, saying that ?their role complements the work of other holistic care providers, educating people about good health practices, and helping them recover from common ailments.?
The Phillipses explain the role of community herbalists as practitioners and teachers, and explain the difference between healing and curing, a difference they call essential. They offer advice on growing and drying medicinal herbs and making earth medicines such as teas, salves, and tinctures.

Lemon Herbs
How to Grow and Use 18 Great Plants
Ellen Spector Platt
Stackpole Books, 2002
0-8117-2033-0
The author learned to love the taste and scent of lemons because her mother used them in cooking. Lemon balm, lemon basil, lemon catmint, citronella grass, lemon gum tree, and Mexican giant hyssop are some of the plants that Platt recommends, along with instructions for growing them and descriptions of their culinary uses. She explains their medicinal uses, gives ideas for herbal beauty preparations, and suggests ways to use fresh lemon herbs to help with cleaning chores. She gives advice on designing and planting herb gardens outside, in containers, and as houseplants. There?s a chapter on lemon herb crafts and one on cooking with lemons and lemon herbs, including twenty-eight recipes.

Pebble Mosaics
25 Original Step-by-Step Projects for the Home and Garden
Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell and Gloria Nicol
Firefly Books
1-55297-573-8
Pebble mosaics are created with amber-colored sea stones, tiny shells, and red, turquoise, and gray pebbles. This art has a long history and some of its ancient methods are still used today. The authors provide color photographs and detailed instructions for each project, along with lists of the materials and tools needed. The projects include a mosaic tree collar, paving slabs, stepping stones, a garden path, a pebble table and basket, a garden bench, a sundial, a birdbath, a bubbling fountain, a shell window box, and a mirror frame. Some of the mosaics are complicated, but any of them will enhance the appeal of your home or garden.

Forever Green
The History and Hope of the American Forest
Chuck Leavell
Evergeen Arts
1-56352-654-9
During the last two decades the author, a rock/blues pianist with the Allman Brothers Band and Sea Level, has created a prime tree-farming enterprise on his 1,200-acre plantation in Georgia. Leavell begins the book with a basic description of trees and the four types of forests found in the United States, offering a brief history of American forests from the time of the first English settlers. He writes of the dedicated conservationists who work to save the forest wilderness, and discusses efforts to save trees and what is likely to happen in the future. Leavell?s love of the forest is evident in every page of this thoughtful book.

For most of us, the winter months are too cold to work in the garden. All we can do is get out the garden books and start planning. It?s never too early for that.