BOOKreviews

Happy Plant: A Beginner’s Guide to Cultivating Healthy Plant Care Habits Author: Puneet Sabharwal Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press List Price: $24.95 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3pe1ERh and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781648960611 Reviewer: Dorvall Bedford House plants are more than just decoration for Puneet Sabharwal. To him, they are living beings worth the same care and attention as a pet. He describes this in Happy Plant, a quick guide to becoming a plant parent. Sabharwal’s book covers many topics in only four short chapters. The first two are all about the relationship between people and plants, including the evolution of plants, the history of gardening, and what it takes to be the “parent” of houseplants. The third and fourth chapters provide advice about houseplant care, suggesting five plants for beginning plant parents and giving brief descriptions of soil, repotting, pests, and other important information. At the end of the book there is a long list of common houseplants for both novices and intermediate plant parents. This book doesn’t go into great detail about all the topics it covers, but what makes it great is that it is beginner-friendly. Sabharwal goes to great lengths to humanize plants and convey that they are living beings just like us. In the first two chapters, about the science and history of plants, Sabharwal compares plant biology to our own and discusses the evolving relationship between humans and plants. He provides anecdotes about having to leave behind the first plant he bought after moving to New Jersey and his friend watering a plastic fern that also bring humor and sincerity to what is seemingly a simple introduction to houseplants. Sabharwal’s book is full of personality while also being informative about how to start taking care of plants. There is so much love for plants in the author’s advice that this would make a wonderful read for both beginners and people who are somewhat experienced with indoor gardening. o

Dorvall Bedford is a journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park, and an intern this semester with Washington Gardener. He is a native of Frederick, MD.

Succulents for Beginners: A YearRound Growing Guide for Healthy and Beautiful Plants Author: Misa Matsuyama Publisher: Tuttle Publishing List Price: $15.99 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3gNA3l1 and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9780804854603 Reviewer: Hojung Ryu Succulents have a unique appearance that is a feature of their distinct attractiveness. These are very beginnerfriendly plants for gardeners because of their vitality. In Succulents for Beginners, Misa Matsuyama educates readers about succulents, including different types, appearances, cultivations, and ways to incorporate them into our daily lives. The first chapter of the book is a comprehensive, yet self-explanatory, guide to the types, styles, and characteristics of succulents. A pageful of pictures makes the content easy to follow and helps even beginners accurately identify each plant. Along with the basic information, Matsuyama provides a helpful tool about the suitable seasons to grow each succulent and how to prepare them as the seasons approach. This naturally leads the readers to the second chapter: the cultivation of the succulents. This diagram and image-heavy chapter walk each reader through every delicate step of cultivating succulents. From positioning, fertilizing, and more, the book goes into depth and details about each plant. “Much depends on their variety and type, so observe them carefully as you cultivate them,” Matsuyama writes before explaining how proper cultivation and cutting can help succulents flourish. The next chapter answers common questions while growing succulents with vital advice about how to detect signs of their health. Matsuyama represents specific plant parts, including Sphagnum moss and Haworthia roots. The fourth chapter guides readers to incorporate greenery into interior design and everyday lives. Matsuyama introduces these creations in the living space as a “home that is alive.” The use of images provides great examples of how to achieve attractive looks and aesthetics. The last chapter gathers the best looks of uniquely beautiful succulents. The gallery Matsuyama puts together expands the reader’s mind on succulents beyond their easy maintenance and appearances. This beginner-friendly book is perfect for those who are in the starter stage of succulent gardening. Matsuyama is a Japan-based author, so readers should keep in mind that certain plants described in this book may not be available locally. o

Hojung Ryu is a junior journalism and criminal justice double major at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. She is an intern this semester with Washington Gardener and is from Mahwah, NJ.

Wild: The Naturalistic Garden Author: Noel Kingsbury Photos: Claire Takacs Publisher: Phaidon List Price: $59.95 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3525Axa and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781838661052 Reviewer: Jim Dronenburg This large and heavy book is a trove of “naturalistic” gardens from America to Australia. Not natural, mind you; naturalistic. They only look wild. A natural garden would revert to deciduous woodland in eastern North America, for example, and the book lists several gardens that are essentially North American prairies in Eastern Europe. They take maintenance. The process of succession from bare earth to forest is artificially stopped by periodic maintenance. Seedlings that will turn into succession trees, for instance, have to be removed as well as things like, say, poison ivy. Maintenance is also required to keep any one (planted or reseeding) species from taking over. An interesting note here is that meadow plants tend to intermingle and weave, quite randomly and thoroughly; woodland plants, on the other hand, tend to larger, denser clumps. Water plants have to be watched or one species will often become dominant over all others. The book is divided into sections— Block Planting vs. Intermingling, Mixed Planting and Randomized Systems, Natives vs. Exotics, Self-Seeding, the Dry Garden, and A Seasonal Approach. It features 41 gardens, private and public/corporate. There is a detailed photo essay and at least one page of text (aside from one to two paragraph captions for most photos) for each one. And the photos are superb. They, and their captions, could stand alone as a book. The text describes what the garden is, where it is, and its designer(s). Before the sections/gardens start, an introduction touches on the questions posed and ideally answered by these gardens, and a short history of the gardening that has led up to the “naturalistic” plantings covered there. Block planting á la Oehme Van Sweden is covered, but the trend is to mixed planting for a more natural look. This can be done by seed or plugs. In Europe, they sell plant mixes for the purpose. There are, throughout the book, some plantings that look like unweeded garden plots still coming up, with the occasional coneflower among the grasses and predictable everyone-does-this plants around some very ugly modern buildings (de gustibus…). But points in the book more than make up for this. Things to copy, things to note for future use. Emergent plants—twice the height of those around them—help to avoid uniformity of height and create drama. Having a dark background behind them helps. American meadow/prairie plants tend to bloom in high to late summer. European meadow plants tend to be spring/early summer. Eurasian steppes—their prairies—often have a rich bulb underplanting for early spring before things grow tall. Steppe and Mediterranean plants look best (briefly) in spring. This creates a seasonal disparity that people who want a sustainable, irrigation-free garden have to live with (or mix plantings…). Incidentally, the Mediterranean flora tend to low, mounded subshrubs, like lavender or cistus, mounded because they are “goat-pruned.” Indeed, meadow/prairie plantings that are left to standing seed heads and grass clumps tend, in your reviewer’s opinion, to look like autumn in summer and like winter by autumn. One meadow garden mentioned is Great Dixter. These gardens are mowed once or twice a year, either for hay or for grass to compost. They have their season and then are cut. This removal of biomass has lowered the fertility of those areas and opened the door for a large number of species that could not compete with faster growers, in a more fertile area. A point to ponder. The native vs. exotic question is examined. Usually there is a mix of plants if the preference is to have some interest at most times. And of course, your reviewer just snickered at

the use of American plants to create a “wild garden” in Europe. All the usual suspects… Speaking of which, there is a listing in the back of the book of 76 “key” plants and grasses, with thumbnail photos and descriptions. There is also a garden directory of properties listed, location, climate, and contact info, as well as a section of short blurbs about various designers. So. Buy it? Not so sure, because a lot of the things shown don’t translate to DC-area small properties. (Some do.) Read it? Most definitely. Go to your library and demand it. o

Jim Dronenburg is a retired accountant and now gardens full-time in Knoxville, MD.

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