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American
Horticultural Society
The American Gardener
May/June 2007 Recommended
Garden Books
Because the AHS Horticultural Book
Service was discontinued as of June 30, 2000 no further phone or mail orders
are filled. However, AHS members are still be able to order books at a
discount by linking to Amazon.com through the Society's Web site. Through this
partnership with Amazon.com, AHS members can receive better discounts on most
titles, faster delivery, greater inventory, and improved access to
hard-to-find books. The books listed here have not been critically evaluated;
they have been chosen for description based on unusual subject matter or
substantive content.
The following books are our current
recommended garden books from the Ma y/June2007 issue of
The American Gardener. To read the review just click on the
book title. You can then order the book directly from Amazon.com by clicking
on "Buy this book!" that follows each review.
BOOK REVIEWS
Recommendations for Your Gardening Library
GARDENER’S BOOKS
Regional Gardening
BOOK REVIEWS
Recommendations for Your Gardening Library
 Encyclopedia
of Hardy Plants
Derek Fell. Firefly Books, Buffalo, New York, 2007. 224 pages.
Publisher’s price, hardcover: $29.95.
Buy This Book
Summer snowflake (Leucojum aestivum) ‘Gravetye Giant’ grows wonderfully
in my USDA Zone 4 garden, yet a friend who gardens on the border of
Zones 5 and 6 can barely keep it alive. Why? In his Encyclopedia of
Hardy Plants, Derek Fell explains that cold hardiness is influenced by
every factor in the garden: wind and light exposure, soil type,
precipitation, drainage, pH, and humidity. So when my winter lows reach
minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, my Leucojum is safely buried in
well-drained soil covered in a thick, insulating blanket of snow. My
friend’s grows in clay soil, with little or no snow to protect it, and
so is apt to perish at a mere 10 degrees below zero.
To Fell, a hardy plant is one that “can survive severe
winters, especially in areas where the ground freezes,” though some of
the plants listed in this book are only hardy to Zone 6. The first
chapter covers those delightful hardy annuals that may successfully be
sown, or allowed to self-sow, in fall. Next come bulbs, herbs,
perennials, including some grasses, shrubs, woody vines, and trees
suited to growing in a garden. The book ends with a short chapter on
vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Each encyclopedia entry gives plant habit,
size, cultural needs, propagation, and a brief description, accompanied
by one of the author’s fine photographs.
It is enlightening to read that trumpet vine (Campsis radicans), which
has never thrived for me, should be hardy to Zone 3. This tells me that
perhaps I’m not meeting some other cultural need for it, and that I
should stop blaming the cold for its demise. To my delight, Fell
includes species daylilies, too seldom used in gardens anywhere.
However, the book leaves out several of my favorite reliably hardy
plants, including Clematis viticella cultivars, Preston lilacs (Syringa
5prestoniae), and the dwarf arctic willow, Salix purpurea ‘Nana’.
Gardeners will always quibble about plant hardiness,
believing somehow that plants can be tidily classified and made to
conform to our human notions. But we cannot know, until we’ve tried them
ourselves, which plants will thrive in our gardens. This encyclopedia
can save considerable frustration and money by offering us a starting
point for our own experimentation.
Nancy McDonald
Freelance writer Nancy McDonald gardens with her husband and dog in
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
 The
Organic Lawn Care Manual
Paul Tukey. Storey Publishing, North Adams, Massachusetts, 2007. 272
pages. Publisher’s price, softcover: $19.95.
Buy This Book
When was the last time you sat down and consciously thought about how
your lawn - and the maintenance required to keep it looking pristine -
affects the planet? In The Organic Lawn Care Manual, Paul Tukey
challenges us to ask tough questions about our lawns. Many years ago,
Tukey asked himself these same questions and discovered that our current
conventional lawn maintenance practices are unsustainable, to say the
least.
Tukey provides the necessary background information and
suggests good quality methods for achieving the same results he did when
he switched to organic lawn care methods. It does not matter if you live
in Pensacola, Bangor, or Tacoma, all the information you need for
maintaining a healthy and beautiful lawn without synthetic chemicals is
here.
When evaluating this book, I set a number of parameters
to see if it passed muster, including explaining grass anatomy, plant
nutritional requirements, soil basics, lawn installation, lawn
renovation, and proper maintenance practices. I also looked for
information on lawn grass plant species and alternatives, repair
methods, equipment selection, and troubleshooting, including how to deal
with pests and diseases. Most importantly though, I checked to make sure
that the book contained information on how to improve the health of the
soil.
In addition to providing all of this essential
information, Tukey goes into depth on some very important points, such
as proper watering practices, soil fertility, and soil improvement. I
especially liked Tukey’s RILE (relax, identify, listen, eradicate)
method for dealing with weeds and other pests. I also enjoyed the
success stories from other gardeners sprinkled throughout the book and
found the charts and graphs useful. The photographs are well placed,
truly illustrating the points Tukey is making in the text.
Both Tukey and I have spent many years in professional
turfgrass maintenance. We may use slightly different methods for
accomplishing various tasks, but our goals are exactly the same. I
highly recommend this book for your lawn’s health, your health, and the
health of the planet we all share.
Don Williamson
Don Williamson has 14 years of experience in golf course maintenance and
construction and is the author of many gardening guides, including
Lawns: Natural and Organic from Lone Pine Publishing (2006).
 The
Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes
Rick Darke. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 2007. 487 pages. Publisher’s
price, hardcover: $59.95.
Buy This Book
Rick Darke’s Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes has, by
virtue of the award-winning author’s splendid photographs and its large
format, the appearance of a coffeetable book. But it is unlikely to be
relegated to the coffee table because the detailed descriptions of
ornamental grasses and evocative examples of their use in the landscape
offer something for gardeners of all levels of expertise and experience.
The encyclopedic section of this book is an expansion of
and update to Darke’s first reference on the topic, The Color
Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses, published in 1999 by Timber Press.
But the scope of this book is far greater, reflecting Darke’s interest
in considering grasses and their use in gardens in the larger global
context of ecology and sustainability. As Darke notes in the preface,
the book “extends far beyond decorative designs and residential gardens
to embrace contextual, conservation-based design of shared landscapes.”
The bulk of the book (240 pages) is devoted to the
encyclopedic section covering true grasses (Poaceae) as well as the
related sedges, rushes, restios, and cattails. Detailed entries discuss
each plant’s provenance, cultural needs, and uses in the landscape.
For those who are befuddled by botanical nomenclature,
chapter six, “Grass Names & Nomenclature,” will demystify it. Compared
to Japanese vernacular names that are “specific and precise,” writes
Darke, English-language vernacular names for plants such as various
species of Miscanthus, are “neither common nor consistent.” For this
reason, one should rely on “the universal precision of the botanical
names, which is precisely why they exist.”
A chapter titled “Cultivation & Maintenance” will provide
even the most novice grass gardener with the basics of choosing the
right plant for, and from, the right place. Here Darke explains the
differences between the two broad categories of grasses—cool-season and
warm-season—and provides detailed instructions for the care and
maintenance of these plants.
For those readers who have dabbled in growing ornamental
grasses, the best parts of this book will be chapter three, “The Beauty
of Grasses,” and chapter four, “Design with Grasses.” The former
illustrates reasons to grow these plants—for their luminosity, their
rich textures, and the sound and movement they bring into the garden.
The latter shows examples of outstanding designs. These designs, from
around the country and around the world, suggest ways for gardeners in
all climates to place and mix ornamental grasses successfully with other
plants in gardens and landscapes.
Carole Ottesen
A contributing writer for The American Gardener,
Carole Ottesen is the author of several gardening books, including
Ornamental Grasses: The Amber Wave. She gardens in Potomac, Maryland,
and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
GARDENER'S BOOKS
Regional Gardening
by Viveka Neveln
Having lived in disparate locales such as the Midwest and the
Mediterranean, I know that the plants one can grow and the type of care
needed to grow them can vary tremendously depending on where you live.
Part of the adventure of moving to a new region is getting to know new
plants and adapting to different climates and soil types. Reading good
regional gardening books is one way I have discovered to ease the
transition. These often become references I return to again and again,
even after I’ve become more comfortable with my new area. For some
gardening guidance tailored to your neck of the woods, here are some
recently published books that focus on various regions and states in
America.
 This
year, the Globe Pequot Press is coming out with a line of Gardener’s
Companion books that focus on individual states. For gardeners in
New England, there’s one for New Hampshire, written by Henry Homeyer,
and one for Massachusetts by Barbara Gee. There’s also one
for Colorado by Jodi Torpey.
Buy This Book
Upcoming editions will include Michigan, Missouri,
Montana, and Virginia. Retailing for $14.95, each book covers the
state’s soil conditions, plants that thrive in the climate, regionally
specific plant-care tips, and how to make the most of the growing
season. They also include a list of useful resources such as gardening
books and organizations, information about local Master Gardener
programs, and sources of seeds, tools, and other supplies.
 Cool
Springs Press, which focuses on regional gardening books, has a couple
of new titles in its Month-By-Month™ series. Its latest one is
Gardening in Alabama & Mississippi by Bob Polomski, published this
year. In 2006, it published Gardening in
Washington & Oregon by Mary Robson with Christina Pfeiffer. Cool Springs
also has released several revised editions for Louisiana, Georgia,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Priced at $24.99, these
user-friendly books provide a monthly guide for working with various
plant categories including annuals, bulbs, roses, trees, and vegetables.
For each of these, the book discusses tasks such as planting, watering,
fertilizing, and dealing with pests, and gives other helpful hints for
achieving a successful garden.
Buy This Book
 Rocky
Mountain gardeners will enjoy Gardening With Altitude: Cultivating a
New Western Style, published in 2006 by Denver Botanic Gardens (DBG)
and written by several of its staff members. Using DBG as an example,
“this book contains not only techniques,” explains DBG Public Relations
Manager Holly Shrewsbury, who edited the book, “but ways of thinking
about how your own garden can be in harmony with nature in a semi-arid,
high-altitude environment - -celebrating, not fighting, this region’s
climate and growing conditions.” Color photographs by Scott Dressel-Martin
illustrate almost every one of the book’s 168 pages, presenting a
tantalizing glimpse of the region’s vibrant flora and landscapes.
 Heading
further west, Designing California Native Gardens by Glenn Keator
and Alrie Middlebrook (University of California Press, 2007, $27.50)
takes a “plant community approach to artful, ecological gardens.” The
book’s 12 chapters deal with different native plant communities that
offer the most potential for garden use, ranging from redwood forests
and mountain wildflowers to chaparral and wetlands. The authors provide
a plan (both as a color rendering and a line drawing) to incorporate
species from each particular naturally occurring plant community into a
well-designed garden. For example, the book explains how to create a
meadow garden with grasses, perennials, groundcovers, and bulbs that
grow wild on California’s mountains. Color photographs accompany many of
the plant descriptions and depict the great diversity of California’s
landscapes.
Buy This Book
 For
those with an interest in tropicals, there’s A Tropical Garden Flora
by George W. Staples and Derral R. Herbst (Bishop Museum Press,
2006, $59.95). This monumental reference, weighing in at approximately
900 pages, contains more than 2,100 species of “plants cultivated in the
Hawaiian Islands and other tropical places.” Designed with both
scientists and gardeners in mind, the book includes a section on general
horticultural information relevant to gardening in Hawaii, such as
propagation techniques for tropical species. Additionally, the authors
made an effort to “minimize technical terminology in favor of plant
descriptions and keys that use simple English.” The book is further
enhanced with hundreds of line drawing and more than 80 color
photographs.
Buy This Book
Viveka Neveln, Assistant Editor
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