Seven books published in 1997
were selected to receive the 1998 American Horticultural
Society Annual Book Award. The awards were presented at the
Society’s 1998 Annual Meeting, held in Nashville, Tennessee.
An eighth book was honored in a special category for
children’s books.
The 1998 winners:
Breaking
Ground: Portraits of Ten Garden Designers by Page Dickey,
Artisan.
Committee members thought the title especially appropriate
for this book, which offers personal profiles of 10
landscape designers who are on the cutting edge of that
field. Putting it over the top was its final chapter, in
which the author brought the disparate points of view home
to the reader by relating how her visits with these
landscaping stars changed her perspective on her own garden.
Buy this book!
A
Gardener’s Encyclopedia of Wildflowers by C. Colston
Burrell, Rodale Press.
Ironically, given the rapidly growing interest in native
plants, there didn’t seem to be a book on the market with
the primary goal of describing popular and widely available
American flora. This book not only fills that niche, but
does so with striking photographs and clear, accessible text
that offers organic solutions to problems.
Buy this book!
The
Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman by Judith Tankard, Sagapress.
In spite of our country’s rich garden tradition, there are
few highly readable books recording that history. This one
is especially engrossing in that it describes how a woman
rose to the top in the male-dominated profession of
landscape architecture.
Buy this book!
Hollies:
The Genus Ilex by Fred Galle, Timber Press.
The author, a former president of the American Horticultural
Society, and already widely admired for his massive 1987
work on azaleas has penned a similarly definitive work on
this group of popular trees and shrubs. The author was
profiled in the November/December 1997 issue of
The American Gardener.
Buy this book!
Moss
Gardening by George Schenk, Timber Press.
This was not a topic that might have been deemed promising
by most publishers. But the rising popularity of gardening
with moss, combined with the reader-friendly style of
Schenk—who made the “75 Great American Garden Books” list
with his book on shade gardening—produced a clear winner.
Buy this book!
Taylor’s
Dictionary for Gardeners by Frances Tenenbaum, Houghton
Mifflin Company.
Compiled by a veteran garden-book editor, this dictionary
offers concise definitions of garden terms useful for
beginning gardeners yet packed with enough information on
people, botanical lore, and scientific terms to enrich the
knowledge of the most experienced. The author and her work
was profiled in the November/December issue of
The American Gardener.
Buy this book!
A
Year of Roses by Stephen Scanniello, Henry Holt and Company.
Does the world need another book on roses? This one is
special because of its approachability. Scanniello, rosarian
at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, is one of the country’s
rising rosarians—thoroughly grounded, yet new enough to the
game to calm the fears of beginners who fret about pruning
and black spot.
Buy this book!
A
Tree Is Growing by Arthur Dorros, Scholastic
Press.
Among several impressive books published for children last
year, this one stood out for exquisite illustration and
depth of information. Designed with numerous sidebars, it is
written clearly enough for grade schoolers, yet provides
information so substantial that adults will also find it
enlightening.
Buy this book!
