Books about gardens

A few to start with:

Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
Dear Friend and Gardener by Christopher LLoyd

Hi JustJoey,

Enchanted April also has some great descriptions about an Italian garden as well as a character "greening out all over."

I ran across a little used tag that I intend to adopt that will lead you to a few good titles - "garden fiction"

Here's hoping more people begin using it. Beguiling.

I just pulled To Everything There is a Season, c. 1973, by Thalassa Cruso out of my bookshelves. It is not fiction, but being that old it might have some fiction in it. LOL

Hi Karen. Welcome.
I just had to put your title in touchstone format so it could be followed:
To Everything There is a Season

And since I readily move on new tangents, I've added The Keeper of the Bees to garden fiction. It's a somewhat hard read for nowadays, but the garden scenes are great.

Also, The Melting of Molly is a little known, but delightful story, which starts with Molly planting her flowers askew because she's been watching the sky instead of her task at hand.

Thanks! I tried to do a touchstone but it wasn't cooperating with me this morning.

Thanks for the recommendations, which I've added to my virtual garden-library.
You can find all my gardening-books (fiction + non-fiction) in My Books/Garden.

I think between fiction (e.g. Elizabeth von Arnims books or The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett) and non-fiction (the manuals), there is a specific genre in between, where a gardener shares his or her thoughts and experiences, sometimes a bit fictionalized, sometimes not. To me, Christopher Lloyd is a very good example for this genre:
- Dear Friend and Gardener
- In my garden
but there are probably many others, like:
- The Gardener's year by Karl Capek
- Green Thoughts. A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Pernyi

And is it my imagination or is it coincidence that most of these books are always humorous as well, as if gardening, humour and happiness are branches of the same tree?

7>
I love how you expressed that!

We dirt people understand the deep contentment of having our hands in the soil.
As the last line in Candide sums it up - 'That's true enough,' said Candide; 'but we must go and work in the garden.'

Thanks for reminding me of Candide. That last line really sums it up, doesn't it? I'd like to reread it because it's been a while.
Give me a garden and give me a book and I'm the happiest person alive.
Okay, I'll start a "garden-quote" thread :-)

Wonderful. Nice thinking. I am wanting to recruit some more folks.

>7 Trifolia:
In the bookshops I often see that middle ground labeled "Gardening Essays"; it would include things like Beverley Nichols' wonderful books.

ETA: (Sorry, touchstone not working!)

#7 - "there is a specific genre in between, where a gardener shares his or her thoughts and experiences"

One of my favorite reads in the last couple of years was Michael Pollan's Second Nature: A Gardener's Education. Not only did he grow up on Long Island, like I did, the book focuses about his gardening experiences in Connecticut, where I live now. It's as much a book on the philosophy of gardening, as is it is about the actual experience of gardening. He has since moved to Northern California, where the gardening is much easier, but I loved reading about his struggles with the rocky soil of New England.

Chandra Mukerji, Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles

Today, I discovered the amazing results you get with tagmashing.

If you tagmash garden and fiction, you get this result:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/fiction,+garden

You can include or exclude any tag you want, e.g. if you'd like to exclude children's books, the tagmash would look something like this:
fiction, garden, --children.
Then you get this result:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/fiction%2C+garden%2C+--children

I've been trying all sorts of combinations and although this looks too wonderful to be faultless, I've already discovered many books I'd never have come up with otherwise.

Of course, I'm probably the last one to find out about this feature :-)

I've read several non-fiction books about Gardens, and of course, The Secret Garden. I had it in paperback, then gave it to my niece. Then I found it for free on gutenberg.org!

hi, clam, glad to see you here!

Ola, maggie. :o)

I recently read The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood, which features a garden of poisonous plants based on the one at Alnwick Castle in northern England. The plot is not very fast-paced, but members of this group might have a better appreciation of the book because of the gardening elements throughout.

Ah! That reminds me of a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccini's Daughter. They live within a walled garden of all poisonous plants, grown by the father.

This was in, of all places, a science fiction anthology.

#19 -- The premise sounds very similar -- perhaps the short story was one of the influences on the novel.

I have that book too. Nicely philosophical! (To everything there is a season by Cruso...just realized there were many other books mentioned here!!)

Let's add Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver to the list of loverly discriptions of the natural world. Her sentences leak the color of fresh green vegetation in this book.

I was reminded of it by looking at the fiction list at Dave's Garden, category Garden Fiction:
http://davesgarden.com/products/gbw/advanced.php?category=97&submit=Search

Has anyone read some of the mystery series listed there? There is quite a trend in mystery writing to establish a quirky part-time sleuth in a homey occupation. Sometimes it works, other times......

Hi guys! Have you ever heard of Beverly Nichols? At least 3 of his books are about gardening in England: A Thatched Roof, A Village in a Valley and Down the Garden Path. He's a funny person, he wrote about competing with his neighbour to grow the best of certain flowers and especially asparagus.

Also, another set of old books is by Jean Stratton Porter who wrote the Freckles books and many others that are to do with nature.

These are all sort of dreamy, innocent books and make nice holidays when you're tense.

I believe I started Down the Garden Path, but had to return it too quickly to the library - someone else was waiting for it. That's where he first purchases his place, right? Lovely cover illustration. I'm going to need to borrow it again.

24: I don't remember the order of the books and they aren't illustrated. I best remember the vision of him cramming hundreds of little bulbs into the ground so he could have ocean waves of little flowers. I wanted to do that myself so much! And then I found out how much it hurts to plants a lot of bulbs, so I've never gotten the ocean.

Instead I got a forest with wildflowers that I didn't have to plant :)

I have most of his gardening books, I think - there are a lot more than three!

Down the Garden Path is probably his most famous one, if it's not Garden Open Today. DtGP is the first of the Allways Trilogy, and GOT is the first of the Sudbrook Trilogy, and then there's the Merry Hall Trilogy, and Green Grows the City, which is a stand-alone.

I love the humor of these books, they always make me smile! I also have two of his books about cats.

I've enjoyed the collected newspaper columns of Henry Mitchell: The Essential Earthman and One Man's Garden. They are warm and often funny.

I recently received The Gardener's Year as a gift and am looking forward to reading it.

26: Thank you for mentioning those other books. I'll have to look for them at the library. I found mine at an old used book store years ago.

There's a publisher (Timber Press) who has been reprinting all his gardening books, so they've become readily available again - yay!

That sounds like good news!

Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul is an obvious pick, but my grandmother and I enjoyed it. :)

I'm an audio book reader, so I take recomendations from the audio book group.
I recently tried Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter (great name!)
It's a memoir. The author and her significant other homestead in a ghetto neighborhood of Oakland, CA. I thought I was enjoying it, but I had to give it up as a failure. She was raising poultry for eventual roasting, but when they were mostly grown and were killed by dogs or traffic (though not damaged otherwise - she chased the dogs away) she shed tears of attachment and buried the carcasses. It might sound cold, but she couldn't convince me of her sincerity in raising food after that.

I'm listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle now, by Barbara Kingsolver, and I expect no disappointments.

I loved Novella Carpenter's book and, in a word to defend her, I think many of us deal with many aspects of life with mixed emotions. I raised orphan calves when I was a kid, and I loved each one but I never ever turned down some beef cooked with skill. I think one of the purposes of Future Farmers of American and 4H is to teach youngsters that you can be both emotionally attached to your animals and understand and accept that they provide food for us.

And I totally accept that there are many, many points of view on these topics.

Oh definitely, Karen. I haven't raise animals for food myself, and I'd possibly have the same issue; though I expect to try in a few years. I've helped slaughter and clean animals, but I had not raised them.
But in her presentation of herself, Novella appeared to be even more "materially conservative" than myself, using resources that others might not value or even recognize as such. I was surprised that she didn't even acknowledge the shift in her conservatorship of the animals.

Perhaps I didn't read far enough.

>23 nhlsecord: & 26: I have all of his books which were republished by Timber Press. Real comfort read in a Canadian February!

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
From Stone Orchard by Timothy Findley (Canadian author)
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys (Canadian author)

Here are my garden tags, but I don't have everything in:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/tiffin&tag=Gardening

I don't own this but I loved it:
In the Garden with Jane Austen by Kim Wilson

> 32

I loved Nigella Carpenter's book, too. She was very brave to raise and slaughter her own farm animals. I'm not sure that's something I'd want to do. I think it might be fun to have chickens for eggs. I doubt if I would be allowed to raise them in the city, though.

I had bantam chickens for a few years, and we raised them for fun and for eggs. My children got the opportunity to make pets of them, teaching them to eat grasshoppers and such out of their hands. One of the hens became "broody", and sat upon a nest of eggs. We snitched them from her and hatched them in a large box, under a high watt light bulb. Those chicks were so much fun to raise, and they were very tame.

You might be allowed to have bantam chickens in the city if you don't have a rooster. Some people have chickens in their house (no kidding!). :)


Bantam and standard chickens

I'll skip the chickens in the house, thanks. :)

We do have friends who have chickens, but they (the friends) live on a very large plot of land, and the chickens are housed in a coop. I seriously doubt if even their neighbors know they keep chickens.

I remember from Nigella Carpenter's book that it's very hard to tell the sex of chickens when they are small.

The only pets I ever allowed my kids to have were hermit crabs and hamsters. Now my younger son has a dog and rats (really his soon-to-be bride's). My daughter and her fiancee have two cats. I get the cat fur for my outdoor suet box which provides nesting material for birds. :)

I loved the Nigella Carpenter book and think she only pulled it off because she was in a city where the neighbors did not complain, and the authorities were too busy with other priorities.

Seattle allows some chickens and I think there are other cities who do, but with no roosters, and I think there are lots of don't bother the neighbors conditions.

FYI Christopher Lloyd had a new book come out this year--in the spring, I believe. Did you happen to see it? If you like him, you might also like Joy Larkcom.

Just finished an interesting book called The Vertical Farm which gives a theoretical solution to many of the world's food, water and waste problems. The technology to make this happen is starting to develop, it will be very interesting to see where this goes in the next 20 years. This book focuses more on why vertical, indoor, hydroponic/aeroponic farming is a good and perhaps necessary idea than on the practical details and technology. Ultimately the more idea-based focus probably makes the book more readable and interesting than a more technical book would be. Lots of references, web resources, and interesting web sites are listed in the back.

>41 NorthernStar:
I'm glad you posted about that. I haven't found the book yet at my library, but it's on my list.
I meant to research news reports from the 2nd Urban Agriculture Summit in Linköping, Sweden.

http://www.urbanagriculturesummit.com/The_Summit_2013.html

There's a thread started in the Sustainability group about this concept.

I read the Beverley Nichols books when I was much younger, and was delighted to see the Timber Press reprints, all of which I have acquired. He can be rather twee at times, but the books are very entertaining. . .
Lots of the books about people settling invarious aprts of Europe. . .Tuscany, provence etc., also involve the making of gardens. A few from my shelves - A Garden in Lucca by Paul Gervraise, Notes from an Italian Garden by Joan Marble, The Luberon Garden by Alex Dingwall-Main, Villa Fortuna by Geoffrey Luck, and A Parrot in the Pepper Tree and Driving over Lemons by Chris Stewart. Closer to home for us Australian readers are A Garden in thje Hills by Christine McCabe, as well as the books by Holly Keir Forsyth. . . I find these books enormously comforting- they remind us that creating a garden is not always easy - and definitely not for the faint hearted!!!!

I forgot to mention that I have the book about the lost gardens of Heligan, their rediscovery and restoration, which is really interesting (and one of the best places I've visited).

rgdoz, I have them all too and yes, he can be a bit twee, but I don't mind it, as he's twee about gardens!

Agreed about Mr.Nichols - although I did think playing Chopin to his jonquils in the moonlight was a trifle OTT. . .:)!! I enjoyed 'Green Grows the City' best of all his gardening books - probably because the scale of the city garden was rather nearer to that of my suburban garden.

I saw a piece on television about Heligan - I think it might have been one of the episodes in Monty Don's'Lost Gardens' series. . .looked wonderful. Speaking of Monty Don, his book 'The Ivington Diaries' covers in considerable detail the development of his garden in Herefordshire. With two acres of ground, he too had rather more space to play with than I have!

'The Morville Hours' by Katherine Swift, tells the story of her garden in Shropshire. A companion volume 'The Morville Year' covers a typical year of activity in her house and garden - both books reccommended.

Finally, another 'garden history' is Adam Nicolson's very enjoyable 'Sissinghurst: an unfinished history' which, obviously, deals with the famous garden - ots padt, present -and, hopefully - future.

Actually, after reading about these expansive gardens, I am rather glad that I have only a typical quarter acre in the suburbs to look after - and even that can be something of a trial a times!!

Beverley probably did that for himself as much as for his jonquils. I think he had an intensely romantic nature.
I loved The Morville Hours!
1/2 an acre here and it's getting too much as I get older.

Personally I have no problem about music for jonquils, though I would have prefered slide-guitar, or something on shakuhachi. Meanwhile how could no one yet have mentioned Katharine S. White and her Onward and upward in the garden. On a VERY different note, I got much pleasure from the old treatise Italian landscape in English gardens, particular its remarks on professional hermits. I may have that title wrong, but I'm in a hurry to plant my kale before the arrival of longed-for rain.

Does anyone else get emails from Timber Press publishers? It's nice to get notifications of interesting new titles.

I just ordered How to Eradicate Invasive Plants from the library.

Oh, that does look like an interesting book. I wish I could just buy the book, put it under my pillow, and all the invasive plants would leave in fear!

In rebus 48 atque 49, invasives. Speaking as a long-time organic gardener and, more recently, woods-restorationist, let me give a little counsel, just on the chance that you've not thought of these ideas already, First, the concept of invasive is much more slippery than many will admit. It's by no means a matter of INVASIVE = Bad, by analogy to our all being for Virtue and against Sin (we ARE, aren't we?). Invasive species appear because of disruption to a previously balanced system. For centuries, the overwhelming source of such disruption has been our own species. Thus, when you think about it, agriculture, gardening, and forestry are the origin of most of the invasions we're likely to confront. And further, the issue is not to eliminate invasives, but to manage them in the best way, taking all factors into account. Right: I don't want buckthorn among my apple-trees, and I don't like burdock in what was once a pasture but is now slowly returning to woods. I get that. At the same time, the apples here themselves are hardly a pure, pristine phenomenon of some idealized natural state. My point is that the most important thing is to determine the origin of the invasion, and what it tells us about what would a healthier balance, and not some idealized and impossible perfection. Second, and much more specific, don't fall for the line that Roundup breaks down, and thus is OK for use against some species. Not to put too fine a point on it, urine breaks down too, but you don't want it in your bed. Spraying Roundup is peeing in the bed of hundreds of natural plants, rodents, and microbes whom you in fact we should encourage. Let the rest of us know how you're doing! -- Goddard

Oh, we've already had the RoundUp discussion here, and I'm firmly in your camp on that issue.

And I further appreciate A LOT of the introduced species. Ragweed is one that is mentioned in the book blurb, but I've already decided I might try cultivating it for its edible seeds. I try to be sensitive to what I introduce, and want to know as much as I can about their habits.
And I do want to encourage natives, particularly because native insects and animals do better with the foods they evolved with.

I'm learning to appreciate some leaf consumption by bugs, and am changing my species look-out. In my town garden, I tend to root out all thistles, but give then the nod on my ridgetop.

Good thread! On the subject of ragweed, let me offer this. If memory serves -- which it does only intermittently -- you're creating a little paradise in rural Kentucky. There are some jurisdictions in the US and Canada where cultivation of ragweed is a criminal offense. In the outback, I don't suppose this would matter, but if you're thinking about doing this in Parkersburg, I would counsel caution. Meanwhile, as a native Midwesterner, ragweed is practically in my DNA, but I wonder whether you are aware that ragweed, quite aside from its pulmonary-allergic properties, can have devastating effect by contact to certain persons. There are people who, curiously, can roll in poison ivy with out discomfort, but suffer horribly by even slight contact with ragweed. Just a word to the wise ... and thanks for the kind words on the other thread in re beeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. -- G

I would so love some resources to help me think about this: I am located in a new, developer constructed, community of small houses. Along with the roads, mail boxes, and typical landscaping around each house there also are areas set aside to be natural habitat and ecology areas. So, no one goes into these areas and nothing is done to deal with the vegetation save maintaining the borders. There is a huge multiplication of blackberry vines in some of these areas and if memory serves me over time they will overtake and kill everything else and then we'll have blackberry brambles. Is this what the government who mandated thee ecology areas, these "natural habitat" areas were thinking would be the ultimate outcome?

What do I do? Anything? Watch and pick blackberries on the edge every August?

I am SO allergic to ragweed! It grows in drifts all along our rural road. Please feel free to come up and eat all the seeds you can hold. If it even touches my skin, I get hives, never mind what it does to my sinuses.

For what it's worth, horses love ragweed and think its the tastiest treat ever.

>52 HarryMacDonald:
Last summer the ragweed grew to my height on the bare areas of my "lawn." I finally got around to chopping them down and bundling them into great piles before they went to seed, hoping to limit their spread this year. That was before I read about how nutritious the seed is. (I'm all about taking the easy way to food production.) So I know I don't have a negative skin reaction to the plants.

Tiffin, I've been eating local honey for three years and seem to have overcome sinus problems. Have you tried that? I'd ask for late season honey if you find a local source.

>53 maggie1944:

Sympathy! You might find some guidance at the Extension Service.

I need a horse.

Can't eat sugar. Darn.

>47 HarryMacDonald: Meanwhile how could no one yet have mentioned Katharine S. White and her Onward and upward in the garden

Katherine White was a good friend of the gardening doyenne of my part of the country, Elizabeth Lawrence. There's a wonderful collection of their correspondence called Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence. Lawrence herself became a kind of guiding light for me when I first moved to the South--it was utterly different country from what I'd known growing up in New England and I felt I had to start all over as a gardener. Her book A Southern Garden is a standard on the shelves and has the added benefit of being as fun to read as it is to use:

Praise a gardener for abundance of bloom, and he will say modestly, “I don’t know how it is, but flowers just seem to grow for me.”

Flowers do not just grow for me. I have no green or growing hand. Nor do I believe what old-timey people say, that flowers grow for those who love them. On the contrary, I believe that gazing upon them too fondly and too intently is the death of many. For this reason (and others) the failure of a plant in my garden does not mean that this plant will languish in all gardens in these parts. In fact I have only to say that a plant will not grow in the Middle South, to have a dozen people come forward to prove that it will--for them. When it became obvious that delphiniums do not grow as vigorously in North Carolina as in Maine, Mr. Jacques Busbee (that excellent gardener and perverse citizen) took delight in confounding his neighbors with the height and fullness of his blue spires. They did not know that be bought new plants of Dreer each and every spring and set them out in the dead of night. Of course, only Mr. Busbee’s special magic could have raised them to any height even then.

--Elizabeth Lawrence, "An Apology for Myself as a Gardener" in A Southern Garden

But my favorite of her books are A Garden in Winter and Gardening for Love: the Market Bulletins -- the latter a series of essays about the classifieds sections gardeners used to post looking for or selling seeds and plants.

>56 2wonderY: Best beloved beekeeper, aka Samthepaintman, let the ragweed grow around the hives last year hoping to get honey that would be beneficial to allergies. I finally convinced him that the amount of suffering it would cause in the here and now would outweigh any future benefit.

In re #59. Thus, varielle, you have earned a laurel crown and maybe a glass of fine wine if we ever meet. Ya done good, as some say. -- Goddard

I'd like to recommend Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf. I've been listening to this one as an audio. Due to my work, family and gardening schedules squeezing read time in is hard. It gives you an idea of how important gardening was to the early republic.

I second Founding Gardeners. That book is the reason my vacation this year is going to be a tour of Monticello, Montpelier and Mount Vernon. (The Mount Vernon chapter was my favorite).

Oh, I love audio book recommendations. Ordered it from the library.

>48 2wonderY: et al

Just a further note about the book I mentioned: How to Eradicate Invasive Plants.

Chapter 2, Combat Thy Enemy, offers a very thoughtful discussion of options, including cautionary, though not extensive information about many of the main herbicides available, and the safest, least broadcast method of application. The thrust of the book seems to be offering alternatives to the chemical solution. Each plant species has a page, and each one offers 'less-toxic controls' and 'chemical controls' and many times there is "None recommended." in the second category. When a chemical is recommended it is suggested at a particular plant life stage to make the control most effective, and includes mechanical reductions and then spot chemical treatments.

There are a couple of things that bothered me. The first disposal option was to put gathered materials into the municipal landfill. Chace does suggest sealing and allowing the materials to cook down first, but this doesn't address the environmentally acute issue of volume of landfill trash which results. And then some yard waste is municipally composted, so again, it becomes someone else's problem.

Second, while mentioning that some of these invasives are mainly agricultural problems, the approach seems to address only the suburban landscape.

The list in the book is extensive, catagorized by logical groupings. The photographs are good and adequate, particularly the various grasses, and there is always a recommended non-invasive alternative.

I suppose the definition of weed depends on the gardener. There were many on the list that I welcome in my low maintenance yard. Let them grow and prosper!

I think I'll start a thread titled "Friend or Foe" so we can talk about them.

I think starting a thread which entertains the possibility that weeds can be friends, and uses found for them, is excellent.

I'd like to try dandelion leaves for salad but I don't know when to pick them or anything about what kind of salad they like to be in....

Loving Founding Gardeners. It gives me a completely new and appreciative perspective on George Washington. I knew he had encouraged domestic products as opposed to imports for home use, but I hadn't realized that his philosophy extended to plants, as well.
And he was so clearly a farmer at heart, longing to be back at home all those years, and working beside his slaves, digging and pruning, with his coat removed.
I would have stood in line to dance with the man, too.

I've started to compose a list of books (fiction) in which gardens or gardening plays an important role. Flowers, flower-shops, etc. may be included: http://www.librarything.com/list/1050/all/Garden-fiction#

I've also started another list of garden-essays and books on gardening (memoires, diaries, letters, etc.) that aren't exactly handbooks or encyclopedias: http://www.librarything.com/list/1051/all/Garden-essays-and-books-on-gardening#.

Feel free to add your favourites and suggestions to the lists.

@# 32 - Apart from it being a very good and enjoyable read, what I really loved about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle on audiobook, was that it was read by Kingsolver as well as her husband and daughter, bringing to life and adding a dimension that reading the hardcopy of the book could not have done.

@# 35 - From Stone Orchard was wonderful, wasn't it?

I am new to this thread, just discovered it! I don't know how many posters here are Canadian or north enough in the US to relate but one of my favourite garden gurus is a local woman, Marjorie Harris. She has written many books and has a blog, http://marjorieharris.com/, and a local garden business. I do enjoy reading her works and in fact, have given her book, *In The Garden* as a gift more than once.

Marjorie Harris came out here to speak to the local Hort Society members a couple of years ago. Very good presentation. I have at least of her books, signed, that I purchased at that time.

I'm in the Kawartha Lakes district, jessibud2, and I too am a Marjorie Harris fan.

Love the Kawarthas. Did my undergrad at Trent University. Lovely area.

So did I! Oh for Pete's sake.

Renewing my short acquaintance with Beverley Nichols, as I'm reading (and finishing!) A Thatched Roof. Nichols is a kindred soul. I would have loved to be his friend.

His relationship with the Bristol glass is lovely and memorable.

I also regret I never had the opportunity to make his acquaintance.

Timber Press brought out the whole Nichols oeuvre in lovely hardbound books with the original drawings reproduced. I splashed out for it and am so glad I did. Such comfort reads!

Oh, I thought the Timber Press editions were softcover. That's all I found when I looked. Of course they are out of print again and the dealers are asking higher prices.

It's the gardeners winter job to sort through the catalogs. That's what Michael Pollan says in his first book Second Nature. I'm listening to the audio version, with Michael himself reading it.

The first chapter was a memoir of his youth, and not particularly gripping. But the rest of the book is so so good I've ordered my own copy so that I can highlight and scribble and notate. You can look forward to me sharing the best quotes.

I will have to take mine down and do a re-read.

I'm so glad to have found this group (thanks to qebo). One of my favorite gardening books, Two Gardeners, is a collection of letters between two writers, Katharine Sergeant Angell White, wife of E.B. White and fiction editor at The New Yorker for many years, and Elizabeth Lawrence, a garden book writer and columnist for newspapers and magazines.

Elizabeth wrote a nice book, Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins, something of a memoir about her experiences and correspondence with people who advertised their plants, seeds, and cuttings in the state agricultural market bulletins--much like reading the seed catalogs in the winter, dreaming of the gardens to come.

Unfortunately these lovely books, as well as most of my other gardening books, are in a boxes in the basement, due to a recent move. The shelves will soon be built, and then the books can be rescued, which can't come too soon for me.

Love gardening and reading about gardens. One of my favorites is Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden by Emily Whaley. I took a guided walk around Charleston once and got to see her garden. A jewel of a book about a jewel of a garden. Lovely...

Also, second Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. One to be read more than once.

Good to see this thread pop up again. Another book I read recently and adored, was Diane Ackerman's Cultivating Delight. In fact, I liked it so much, I bought used copies and gave them to 2 friends and my cousin, all gardeners. Ackerman is a gifted writer, a poet and just brings so much love to this book.

A sweet novel: The Garden of New Beginnings by Abbi Waxman

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to re-activate this thread. I have bought 3 books off of the recommendations here!

The Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton-Porter
A Southern Garden by Elizabeth Lawrence
Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence--A Friendship in Letters by Emily Herring Wilson

Should I pull weeds or read about gardens?

In the same way that as I started to really get into cooking, I started collecting fewer cookbooks and more books about food and people's memories of their own family kitchens and cuisines, as I've become more committed a gardener I find I'm less interested in "how to" books, and more interested in the thoughts and memories of other gardeners and their own relationships with the pieces of land they tend.

To that end, one book that made a big impression on me was Deep-Rooted Wisdom, which is a collection of interviews with gardeners around the general theme of making the most of what you have -- as opposed to the landscaper who tries to make over the land into something else. The interviews are with gardeners from all over the place, but a couple are located in the American South, as I am, and many of them are working with less than ideal conditions, as I do. But all of them have a philosophy of working with what you are given, rather than defying common sense in pursuit of the perfect showcase English cottage garden.

>86 southernbooklady: Make that 4 new books that I have acquired from this thread. Well, it's too hot to garden right now anyway, so I might as well read!

Have had a vicious, evil virus this week and as a reward, (or maybe my fever was too high) I ordered a new garden book. Also, I am hoping it will help me get through the winter and give me ideas for renewing a garden bed that has been neglected for many years. The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage by David L. Culp. Thank goodness for medicines!!

Just received an Early Reviewers book called A Way to Garden by Margaret Roach. Lovely book. She likens the garden year to the stages of life-conception, birth, youth, adulthood, senescence, death and afterlife.

I finally got around to ordering a couple of the Beverley Nichols books, as my relationship with AbeBooks warms up.

I remember having had a copy of An Englishman’s Garden by Edward Hyams. It’s about his reconstruction of an old parsonage and garden in Devon. Also the name Miles Hadfield rings a bell.

Back in the days when I was forced to work in my parent's garden and hated it, I came across Gene Stratton Porter and my viewpoint of gardening was changed forever! Forty years of garden journaling and digging in the dirt later, I'm grateful that an author was able to turn what was seen as a chore into a love affair with God's creation.

I tend more towards non-fiction about gardens and I got a new one in the mail today: Rooftop Gardens: The Terraces, Conservatories, and Balconies of New York. I first encountered this book when I borrowed it from my public library and was blown away. These gardens are jewel boxes, all kinds of styles, and I dare say a square metre of any of them would cost more than my house.

>93 tardis: - I recently picked up a book that I may well pick up in the very near future: Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively. Especially during times like these, I just don't have the focus or concentration for heavier books. Plus, I am desperate for colour and warmth out there! Just yesterday, the snowdrops in my garden began to open. Two so far but hopes of more colour soon!

Last year I enjoyed reading this book ~
Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life by Marta McDowell

This year I am enjoying reading this McDowell book ~
All the Presidents' Gardens: Madison’s Cabbages to Kennedy’s Roses―How the White House Grounds Have Grown with America

In the future, I plan to read this McDowell book ~
Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet
(I live in ED's area of MA)

Rummaging in all of my tattered books, I came across the 1884 Ornamental Gardening for Americans. The author starts out not very complimentary of American gardeners ~ "The art of Ornamental Gardening is, undoubtedly, backward in America at the present time." And a good third of the book is merely plant lists. But then there is chapter 26, where he describes the therapeutic benefits of hands on gardening at insane asylums.

"The result is that a greater number of the garden hands have been discharged as cured in proportion to numbers than of others,"
"... he quaintly terms 'eye pasture' for the patients. These beds give enough flowers to form bouquets for the sick wards..."

It reminds me of an Instagram account I follow - SustainabilityPrisonsProject

I must have wishlisted this from a Timber Press email last year; but picked it up from the New table at the library without realizing so. It attracted me because I too am moving and beginning new gardens.

Uprooted is less a gardening book and more a guided tour of two properties hosted by the owner. Determining that the old property, Duck Hill, was now too much to deal with as they age, Dickey shares their search for the right new place, and what they do to develop the new one, Church House.

The voluminous text is accompanied by professional photos, but more in the way of the owner pointing you personally to look that way and this, as she describes it.

Unlike my own activities, there is no digging and transplanting, as her work at Duck Hill probably contributed to the sale and price. But their decisions and development at the new property are very interesting. She shares the work they did on the historic house as well. A very friendly book.

Seasonal reading. Since St. Patrick’s Day nears, its fortuitous I found these two-

Gardens of Ireland spends time looking down to share all the mossy cozy spots.
In An Irish Garden gives more vistas and more flowers.

Found in a garage stack, and ready to read to granddaughter, little golden book by Margaret Wise Brown, Two Little Gardeners. Pictures by Gertrude Elliott.

Where Poppies Blow by John Lewis-Stempel. The unique story of the British soldiers of the Great War and their relationship with the animals and plants around them. This connection was of profound importance, because it goes a long way to explaining why they fought, and how they found the will to go on. At the most basic level, animals and birds provided interest to fill the blank hours in the trenches and billets - bird-watching, for instance, was probably the single most popular hobby among officers. But perhaps more importantly, the ability of nature to endure, despite the bullets and blood, gave men a psychological, spiritual, even religious uplift. It is in this elemental relationship between man and nature that some of the highest, noblest aspirations of humanity in times of war can be found.

Interesting book but drags in places.

Grandma Called it Carnal is a memoir about being raised by Grandma Griswold in the last two decades of the 19th century. Grandma is an odd mix of strict disciplinarian and Thoreau follower. In an all female household, Aunt Martha does all the work and Grandma makes all the decisions, including removing any and all new-fangled work aids.
But chapter 7 is about her gardens. I wish I could share the whole. I looked; it’s not in Project Gutenberg.

Grandma spent much time “working in the garden.” She called it that, but it wasn’t like work. It was a kind of formative being present, intensely aware - that combination of willing and of gloating, simultaneously, that is creation; just as God in the Six Days didn’t seem to do much but say, let there be something or other, and there was something or other, and then God saw it was very good. That last is most important. The result is Eden. And Grandma made an Eden for herself in that very manner.

Chapter 8 recounts the battle between Grandma and Juno the cow for primacy in the gardens.

I’ve had to order her other memoir, A Sense of Humus.

New here. Pocket bio: Retired humanities teacher, residing in Tlaxcala, Mexico, with two dogs and six indoor cats. Passionate about literature, history, philosophy, classical music and opera, jazz, cinema, and similar subjects. Nostalgic guy. Politically centrist. BA in American Studies from Yale; MAs in English and Education from Boston University. Born in northern New Jersey. Have lived and worked in San Francisco, Chicago, northern Nevada, northeast Wisconsin, South Korea.

What Sarah Orne Jewett did for Maine in The Country of the Pointed Firs, Alice Brown (1857-1948) does for New Hampshire in her stories of “Tiverton” (Hampton Falls). Local color writers like this should appeal greatly to cottagecore enthusiasts of today! I am reading Brown’s Meadow-Grass: Tales of New England Life, and a noteworthy characteristic of the writing is her great precision regarding plant life, every species specified, which should make her work a delight for botanists and gardeners.

>102 PatrickMurtha: Those sound wonderful! Welcome to the group.

>103 MrsLee: Thank you kindly! I have also been reading Gertrude Jekyll’s Wood and Garden, after having read her Colour in the Flower Garden earlier. She is an inspiration to me even though I am an indifferent gardener myself, because her approach to cultivation is applicable in other areas.

Fortunately I am better with animals than with plants; cats and dogs thrive for me!

>104 PatrickMurtha: And here I was hoping you would start a personal gardening thread so I could know what is going on in the gardens of Tlaxcala, Mexico!

I love to read well written books about the natural world, but I'm not much eager to be out in it. The reality of heat, cold, insects, etc. damps my enthusiasm for the actual experience.

The front yard of my rented house in Tlaxcala is a challenge landscaping-wise, because half the year there is a lot of rain, and half the year there is none.

I too like a lot of experiences better through the printed word than I do through actually living them. 🙂

Ich bin neu hier und habe gerade erst angefangen mich mit LibraryThing auseinander zu setzen. Mein Hauptthema sind Gartenbücher von denen ich schon einige hundert habe und in Zukunft einpflegen werde. Muss aber erst schauen wie einfach das mit Büchern geht, die schon ein bisschen älter sind und daher nicht in den gängigen Verzeichnissen über einen Barcode gefunden werden können. Gehölzbücher und Staudenbücher sind mein zentrales Thema. Ich freue mich schon auf den Austausch hier. Liebe Grüße aus Graz in Österreich

>107 Stadtparkhansi: Herzlich Willkommen hier.

Bei älteren Büchern ist es besonders wichtig nur Bibliotheken als Quelle zu nehmen. 'Overcat ' ist immer ein Versuch wert. Ältere Bücher in Amazon sind meist von 'Partner Betriebe' und wahnsinnig schlecht. Manual entry is schneller als alles zu korrigieren. Amazon cover Bilder sind auch mit Vorsicht zu geniessen. Wenn Amazon das Bild ändern sollte oder gar nicht mehr fuhrt, ist auch hier das Bild anders oder Weg. Es ist besser von Anfang an nur Mitglieder covers zu verwenden.po

Sie werden merken daß wir viel über unsere Gärten erzählen mit Bildern! Was für ein Garten haben Sie?

Grüße aus Wien.

Stadtparkhansi from Graz in Austria tells us that he has hundreds of gardening books to enter, many of them older. His particular specialty is books about bushes, trees, and perennials. I have welcomed him, given him the standard warning about older books and Amazon, and asked about his garden.

>107 Stadtparkhansi: In zwischen habe ich einige Ihre Bücher 'kombiniert'. Das Computer bei LT ist ziemlich clever, und kann oft ein Buch richtig einordnen. Aber wenn eine Übersetzung zum ersten Mal eingegeben wird, geht's nicht. Man muß das Werk finden für das original und dem Computer sagen daß die zwei zusammen gehören. Hier ist Thalia.at eine grosse Hilfe, weil unter 'mehr Details' das original Titel angegeben wird. Manche von diesen Büchern waren eigentlich nicht von Cussler selbst, was die Sache weiter kompliziert.

Man muss immer schauen ob ein Buch sein richtiges Werk gefunden hat. Wenn es nicht geklappt hat ist es meist nicht schwierig das in Ordnung zu bringen, und es sind nicht genug Leute hier die Deutsch lesen, als das man sich erwarten kann, jemand Anders wird es schon richten. Ich bin gerne bereit Tips zu geben. (Diesmal habe ich alles gemacht. Nächstes Mal sage ich wie Sie es machen können.)

Just about combining. I did the ones that needed doing. Next time he gets told how to do it himself.

>107 Stadtparkhansi: Willkommen!

I’m trying to find and read the rest of the Harpeth Valley books this year. I actually have the hard copy of The Heart’s Kingdom in my hands today, borrowed from the college library.
Charlotte returns to her home after a year in New York City and is chagrined to find a Methodist chapel built adjacent to her gardens. She resents the new parson, but he seems dedicated to cultivating and preserving the garden. One scene has him coming over in his pajamas one late evening and enlisting her father’s help to cover the blooms to save them from a late frost. Her father grabs an armful of her linens not yet unpacked from a trunk.
The book is replete with nature; so far correct as to season.
I’ve added the Gutenberg link to the description on the work page.

In pursuit of more Harpeth Valley books, I’ve been sitting in a sealed room at the college library, reading Over Paradise Ridge. (It’s in their Special Collections.)
And checking AbeBooks to acquire my own copy. Scored it yesterday.
It will be tagged “garden fiction.”
Betty finds her great grandmother’s gardening journal and is inspired to learn the skills as well. Her bosom childhood friend, Sam, has abandoned other career intentions and determines to bring an old farm back in production. The work they put in is remarkable; and always find a small slice of time to plant the hollyhocks too.

Today was the Public Library's "Books 2 Buy" sale, and I bought 4 (FOUR) gardening books:
NatureScape Alberta : creating and caring for wildlife habitat at home
Garden Magic : Inspired Garden Design
Giverny : the garden of Claude Monet
The New Garden Paradise : great private gardens of the world

The first is practical and local. The other three are straight-up eye candy. The 4th is a honking 3 kilograms. Total cost was $20, and I'm feeling quite pleased with my haul.