More Christmas Books for the Gardener

  • Post published:12/21/2018
  • Post comments:2 Comments

Ground Rules by Kate Frey
Ground Rules by Kate Frey photo courtesy of Timber Press

More Christmas books. There is no end of books to delight and inform the gardener. Kate Frey’s new book, Ground Rules: 100 Easy Lessons for Growing a More Glorious Garden (Timber Press $19.95) has a sweet cover with painted flowers and birds. It would be easy to dismiss this book as something only of interest for the new gardener. However, it does not take a long browse through each bright page to realize that there is always something to learn – or to remember.

Frey is a consultant, educator designer, and freelance writer specializing in sustainable gardens and small farms that encourage biodiversity. She is a gardener whose experience has taught her how to break down all the aspects of gardening from thinking and planning through to your own Garden of Earthly Delights.

The first necessity is thinking about what you need in a garden and dreaming about what you love and would like to create. There are many questions to ask yourself. If you want vegetables where will you place it? What do you want to see out your window? I can tell you that when we moved to a small house in town we had to renovate the kitchen. A result of that new and much more efficient kitchen is a double window looking out into the garden. That view is the best view of the garden and I get to enjoy it every time I make toast, toss a salad, cut out cookies, or plate up our dinner. It gives me more pleasure every day observing the daily and seasonal changes. Thinking about what you will see from your window is an important aspect of planning your garden.

Each page with its informative text and bright photos is a delight. Frey takes us through the many aspects of creating a garden. The second chapter is about the Joy of Plants which provides great information about choosing the right plants and the right space that will pleasure in every season, including annuals, perennials, vines and bulbs. The Real Dirt is full of information about creating healthy soil. I think we are all more aware of how important the quality of our soil is to the success of our plantings, but are not sure of how to improve and maintain good soil. Especially if we are determined to cut down on, or eliminate herbicides and pesticides.

Frey’s chapters move on  through Be Wise With Water, How to Be a Good Garden Parent about the care of plants, Birds, Bees and Butterflies and their importance, and finally the Garden of Earthly Delights. Frey gives us an abundance of knowledge and pleasure in this little book.

The Less is More Garden: Big Ideas for Your Small Garden

The less is more garden
The Less is More Garden by Susan Morrison
cover image courtesy of Timber Press

The Less is More Garden: Big Ideas for Designing Your Small Yard (Timber Press $29.95) understandably hits on many of the same issues as Common Rules. The difference is that Susan Morrison provides many examples of ways to organize a small garden for your individual preferences and needs. Morrison is not only a landscape designer, she is an authority on small-space garden design. She is a good teacher and has shared her strategies on the PBS series Growing a Greener World and in publications such as Fine Gardening.

More and more of us are living in more urban areas, or who in our later years, need and want smaller gardens. Morrison reminds us right at the start that a small space can result in less effort, less maintenance and therefore more enjoyment, beauty and relaxation. She begins by stating that designing a new garden demands a consideration of how and when you will use that space. Do you grill and have frequent meals outside? Do you sit in the garden in the middle of the day, or in the cooler hours? Will your pets enjoy the garden?

I found The Less is More Garden to be wonderfully inspiring. She provides design templates to give the novice someplace to start and provides information about plants for different situations. She knows how to create illusions of space, and the value of focal points. She stresses the importance of water in the garden even if it is only a bird bath. As a person who is timid about choosing colors, I appreciated the different ways she suggested for thinking about color.

What makes a house a home? It takes more than four walls and a roof. It takes time living in the house, making it comfortable for everyone in the family and creating memories. It takes time to make a garden. Over time the garden can take form based on the pleasures everyone finds in the garden, and building memories of a place that is loved.

The many excellent photographs and Morrison’s lists of particular kinds of plants make this book useful and practical as well as inspirational.

Good books, informational and beautiful, make great gifts, but there is another way of giving information and beauty. You could give the gift of membership in the American Horticultural Society. Membership includes a subscription to the American Gardener with six issues of information each year with great photos. Log onto  www.ahsgardening.org. to learn about the benefits of a $35 membership which includes special admission privileges and discounts at 320 public gardens throughout the U.S., an invitation to participate in our seed program, and access to members only online gardening resources, and you enjoy knowing you are supporting the AHS and gardening is the USA.

Between the Rows  December 15, 2018

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Both of those look good! I’m going to have to take more time to check out garden books. Most of my reading during the winter is fiction or historical fiction.

  2. Pat

    Beth – They are good books – but garden books aren’t the only books I read. I am a major library customer, looking for mysteries, novels, and historical novels. If you like historical novels I suggest the Miss Kopp series by Amy Stewart, who began by writing books about plants, but has added four books beginning with Girl Waits With Gun – about how a woman in 1914 became the first woman deputy in New Jersey. Fun – and true! She is a great researcher. I just finished Munich by Robert Harris – riveting. His historical novels begin in rome! I’m reading fast – trying to read as many of the books I am giving as gifts first. Happy holidays! All of them.

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