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American
Horticultural Society
The American Gardener
November/December 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 November/December 2007 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
Books for Young Readers
BOOK REVIEWS
Recommendations for Your Gardening Library
 1001 Gardens
You Must See Before You Die
Rae Spencer-Jones, general editor. Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.,
Hauppauge, New York, 2007. 960 pages. Publisher’s price, hardcover:
$34.99.
Buy This Book
Under the guidance of General Editor Rae Spencer-Jones, formerly with
Gardens Illustrated magazine, a team of more than 70 contributors from
around the world helped to compile this useful guidebook aimed at
globetrotting gardeners. From the much-celebrated gardens at France’s
Château de Versailles to the miniscule garden created by Celia Thaxter
in Appledore, Maine, this book is an impressive compendium you’ll want
to consult when planning your next trip.
The book is organized from east to west and north to
south, starting with North America and ending with a section on islands.
When trying to find gardens in the United Kingdom, I found it confusing
to go from Estonia to Scotland to Denmark and Lithuania and then back to
England, with Wales following Germany and Poland, rather than
alphabetically. However, an index does list gardens by country.
Succinct entries highlight each garden’s best features. One I found
particularly compelling is editor Erica Hunningher’s description of the
Dhobi Mahal palace in Rajasthan, India. Even though it is filled with
weeds, the garden and “the whole crumbling complex offer a fascinating
glimpse of Mughal grandeur.”
Each entry also contains a short list of useful
information: the garden’s size, location, climate zone, owner, and main
style, whether 20th century modern or 14th century Moorish. The garden
designer or designers are also listed and stunning photographs accompany
many entries.
The guide is heavy on British gardens - more than 50 in
Scotland and Wales alone, 240-plus in England. In the United States,
just over 100 gardens are listed, and there are some glaring omissions:
the U.S. Botanic Garden and National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., for
example.
Nevertheless, this is an indispensable book for the
garden aficionado. At more than 900 pages, it’s a little too cumbersome
to drag around in a suitcase or tote bag, but still a very welcome
addition to the garden travel guide genre.
Jane Berger is a landscape designer based in Washington, D.C., and
publisher of
http://www.gardendesignonline.com.
 Conifers
for Gardens: An Illustrated Encyclopedia
Richard L. Bitner. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 2007. 424 pages.
Publisher’s price, hardcover: $59.95.
Buy This Book
The wait is over for conifer enthusiasts worldwide: a book that includes
detailed species and cultivar information, cultural details, and lots of
color photographs has finally arrived. Richard L. Bitner compiles all
this and more in Conifers for Gardens: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, a
book that will surely find a home on the bookshelves of novices and
experts alike.
Bitner’s extensive knowledge of conifers and his
matter-of-fact writing style make the reading fluid and the subject easy
to understand. In the introduction, he gives an overview of conifer
biology, landscape use, origin of names and cultivars, and pests and
diseases. The encyclopedic listings of conifers follow, alphabetized in
a clear and logical manner by genus, then species, and then cultivar.
Each entry contains detailed species and cultivar
descriptions, including origin, habit, cultural requirements, ornamental
characteristics, potential landscape uses, and even ethnobotanical uses
and wildlife significance. The book is illustrated with 1,550 color
photographs taken by the author in gardens, arboreta, and nurseries in
the United States and Europe. For many entries, close-up photos of
foliage, cones, and bark are included.
A helpful appendix includes a quick reference guide to
conifer taxonomy and conifer selection, providing multiple choices to
consider whether selecting a plant for foliage, habit, or cultural
requirements. Another appendix lists gardens in the United States,
Canada, and Europe that Bitner recommends for viewing conifers. On top
of that, there’s a 10-page index that includes all cultivars, common
names, and pests and diseases of the plants listed in the book.
“Perhaps more than any other group of plants, conifers
are selected without much thought and inappropriately placed in the home
landscape,” observes Bitner. “They are often considered merely
utilitarian, low-maintenance shrubs to situate next to a building to
hide its foundation.” This book is a testament to the fact that conifers
are far more versatile, offering gardeners a “varied palette of forms,
colors, and textures” and year-round interest.
Jessica Arcate is curator of trees and shrubs at The
New York Botanical Garden, where she is responsible for the maintenance
and development of the woody plant collections.
 Sunset
Western Garden Book
Kathleen Norris Brenzel, editor. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo
Park, California, 2007. 768 pages. Publisher’s price, softcover: $34.95.
Buy This Book
With its latest release, the Sunset Western Garden Book retains its
position as the “bible” for gardeners west of the Rockies. First
published 70 years ago, the ensuing eight editions trace the evolution
of the western garden, reflecting a region-wide emphasis on outdoor
living and, now, an accelerating interest in earth-friendly practices.
The Western Garden Book is best known for its
encyclopedia of plants grown in the West. Symbols, codes, and succinct
descriptions of more than 8,000 plants fill more than 500 pages. With
each edition, the editors make the wrenching decision to eliminate a
number of plants to make room for new introductions that have entered
the trade since the previous edition.
Because of increasing concerns about water in the West,
each plant is coded for its particular needs. In this new edition, the
illustrations for each plant have been made larger and, thus, more
helpful. The book includes lists of plants grouped by type and purpose,
all keyed to the encyclopedic listings.
What sets the Western Garden Book apart from other
gardening encyclopedias is its presentation of regional climate zones.
For several decades, the Sunset staff has researched meteorological
records, maintained first-hand observations, and communicated directly
with horticulturists throughout the West to document yearly temperature
ranges and extremes (not just winter lows), average annual rainfall
amounts and seasonal patterns, humidity, ocean versus continental
influences, wind patterns, and prevalence of sunlight.
The result has been a continuous refinement of the 24
carefully delineated climate zones in the West—from coastal to mountain,
temperate rainforest to desert; additional zones apply to Alaska and
Hawaii. The encyclopedia listings note the zones in which each plant is
dependable, providing a useful aid for reliable plant selection for
western gardens.
Such a tome could easily become impersonal and stale, but
the editors have avoided those pitfalls with appealing graphics, superb
photography, and a clear organization of the material, all backed by
solid horticultural advice for gardening in the - mostly - arid West.
New to this edition are personal recommendations or how-to tips from
more than 30 individuals known for their expertise in Western gardening.
Richard G. Turner Jr. is the editor of Pacific Horticulture, the
magazine for West Coast gardeners, and has also edited several books,
including Trees of Golden Gate Park and Botanica.
GARDENER'S BOOKS
Books for Young Readers
Several gardeners I know became interested in plants at a
young age, usually thanks to a parent, teacher, or other mentor. I can
probably attribute my own horticultural beginnings to my mother, who
would tell me the names of all the plants in our garden and help me
sprout an avocado seed from time to time when I was little. The
storybooks my father would read to me at bedtime also helped to kindle
my interest in plants and nature. Several of my favorites, such as The
Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, are named on the “Growing Good
Kids - Excellence in Children’s Literature” Book Award Program’s
“Classics” list of the 40 best books published in the last century. More
wonderful books arrive every year - here are a few recently published
examples.
 Where would
gardens be without earthworms? Wiggle and Waggle (Charlesbridge,
2007, $12.95)
Buy This Book
by Caroline Arnold and illustrated by Mary Peterson
celebrates these little critters in an endearing way that children will
dig (pun intended). Divided into five short chapters, this book follows
two worms as they industriously tunnel around in a garden, making up a
song to make the work go faster. Then the duo takes a day off to enjoy a
picnic of bug juice, dirt rolls, and mud pie, followed by a swim in a
puddle left by a passing shower. A page at the end of the book explains
in simple sentences how worms help plants grow and includes a few “fun
worm facts,” such as mentioning that the longest worms in the world grow
up to 22 feet.
 Here
We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush by Iza Trapani (Charlesbridge, 2006,
$6.95)
Buy This Book
stars some other critters that are perhaps less endearing
to gardeners than earthworms, but will certainly charm young readers.
Set to the children’s song of the same name as the book, the stanzas
tell the story of a gardener’s efforts to keep a succession of marauders
out of her vegetable patch. Rabbits, mice, groundhogs, deer, and
raccoons all make an appearance, munching and crunching their way
through the pages with gusto. This forces the gardener to perfect her
fence again and again with equal determination until at last she can
only shrug and try to share. The colorful and sometimes intricate
watercolor illustrations further bring this wild goose chase to life.
 “Trees
can be a part of our childhood memories, often growing up along with
us,” notes Dar Hosta, in her inspiring new picture book, If I Were a
Tree (Brown Dog Books, 2007, $17.95)
Buy This Book.
She asks her readers to leap into the bark of a tree, imagining with her
what life would be like. Her arboreal world consists of trees that
provide flowers in the spring, cool shade in the summer, and a brilliant
autumn show. Trees with sweet gifts such as apples, pears, and cherries
make an appearance, too, along with those that provide homes for
wildlife, all illustrated by Hosta’s beautiful, color saturated
collages. The final collage takes a more direct educational bent, naming
the parts of a tree such as sapwood and crown, and listing a few facts
about trees.
 I Heard
It from Alice Zucchini (Chronicle Books, 2006, $15.95)
Buy This Book,
written by Juanita Havill and illustrated by Christine Davenier, offers
20 poems - some rhyming and some free verse—that make even ordinary
garden happenings seem magical. Words and watercolors whimsically depict
planting seeds in the spring, a scarecrow in the vegetable patch,
picking carrots, and a summer storm, for example. One imaginative poem,
called “The Pumpkin’s Revenge,” fills in the back story about
Cinderella’s pumpkin - ridiculed by other vegetables for its ugliness
until the Fairy Godmother turns it into a carriage. Rather than turning
back into a pumpkin, it remained a carriage and ended up in a Paris
museum.
 For a
slightly older crowd, Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose
by Mary Quattlebaum (Delacorte Press, 2006, $14.95)
Buy This Book
is a chapter book for ages eight through 12, though
adults may even enjoy this humorous, well-written tale. In this third
and final installment of the Jackson Jones series, 11-year-old Jackson
takes a cutting from a rose in a graveyard and gets caught up in a
spooky series of events that revolves around the community garden he
frequents. A colorful cast of characters, including his plant-loving
mother, his best friend Reuben, and Mr. Kerring - who got Jackson into
the whole rose-wrangling mess in the first place - helps him set things
right again.
Viveka Neveln, Assistant Editor
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