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Book Roundup GOOD L I V I NG
GROW YOUR LIBRARY “I am an avid gardener, and I love constant inspiration,” says Martha. “I look at every new garden book with the hope that I will get a few ideas that will affect the way I plant, grow, design, and nurture my own personal gardens.” We, like Martha, can’t get enough garden books— especially during the winter months as we plan our own plots. Here are 12 favorites, classic and newly published, that every green thumb should have on hand.
In Full Bloom Visions of Paradise is filled with large photos of stately gardens, like this one at Hidcote Manor.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MIKE KRAUTTER
THE CLASSICS
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(Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1985)
(Timber Press, 2011)
(Timber Press, 2009)
Horticulturalist and tree-and-shrub expert Michael A. Dirr has put together an exhaustive A-to-Z of more than a thousand plants, complete with color photographs and detailed growing tips. $80, bn.com.
Modern-day adventurer and naturalist Daniel Hinkley travels around the world to scout new species. In this volume, he presents rare and unusual perennials he has encountered on his expeditions. $25, timberpress.com.
Visions of Paradise
Including such gems as England’s Hidcote Manor and California’s Huntington Botanical Gardens, Marina Schinz’s masterful book showcases exquisite cultivated landscapes of Europe and America. $50, abebooks.com.
Dirr’s Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs
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The Explorer’s Garden
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(Indiana University Press, 1981)
Barbara Damrosch wrote the go-to gardening handbook. In her easy-to-follow instructions, she offers sage advice on everything from essential tools to best sustainable practices to how to grow edibles. $19, workman.com.
The Essential Earthman
In this witty, irreverent, endlessly entertaining collection of his columns for the Washington Post, the late Henry Mitchell eloquently conveys the trials and triumphs of gardening. $14, abebooks.com.
The Garden Primer (Workman, 2008)
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The Wild Braid (W. W. Norton, 2005)
“All my life, the garden has been a great teacher in everything I cherish,” writes the late Pulitzer Prize– winning poet Stanley Kunitz in his beautiful meditation on nearly a century of life spent digging in the soil. $19, amazon.com.
