Gardening Books Bring The Outdoors To Your Armchair

Avid garden enthusiasts will tell you that, given the chance, they would spend a good part of every waking moment pottering around in their landscape. But visit any large bookstore and, judging by the many feet of shelving devoted to the subject of Gardening, many of those waking moments are spent reading about it.

Frankly, Cheryl and I are among those enthusiasts who love to read and collect books on the fascinating world of plants, propagation, landscape design and gardens. However much you know (or think you know) there's always another nugget of knowledge to be found within the pages of yet another gardening book!

Today, I'll share with you a few recent books that you might find informative and enjoyable, or could spark a gift idea for that armchair gardener. Of course, giving a book to your significant other has a distinct advantage: you get to read it, too.

"Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses" by William Cullina (publ: Houghton Mifflin) Publishers have long understood that a creative subtitle can go a long way to selling the "sizzle" of a book. Read this book's subtitle, "From Emerald Carpet to Amber Wave: Serene and Sensuous Plants for the Garden," and you are pretty much hooked.

This is certainly a reference book that would be a good investment for anyone needing to know more about ferns, moss and grasses, including how, when and where to plant them. But open almost any page and you'll be entertained by Cullina's lively writing style. Take, for example, his opening paragraph on Phegopteris (Beech Fern):

"At the risk of having my poetic license revoked, I will say that beech ferns are regular Joes - the guy sitting at the counter at the local diner with a cup of black coffee and a tuna on rye..." A fun read, plus hundreds of excellent full color photos, too.

"Flower" by Christopher Beane (publ: Artisan) An extraordinary book of 150 stunning color and black and white photographs, "Flower" concentrates on the overlooked detail, such as the veins of dehydrated petals or the texture of poppy stamens. Each beautifully-reproduced photo is a frameable work of art, revealing previously unnoticed splendor even in familiar plants.

"Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening" by Aurelia C. Scott (publ: Algonquin Books) Again, that subtitle sets the tone for this book that refutes any idea that competitive "rosarians" are all elderly, tea-drinking ladies of the Miss Marple variety. Twice a year, thousands of otherwise normal people snip their prettiest blooms and head into battle at the National Rose Show. The book tells us these are Type A gardeners and for them this is a blood sport.

The National Rose Show is to these guys what the Westminster Dog Show is to dog breeders. Ms Scott gives us a warts-and-all look at these obsessive rose growers and what happens when the (gardening) gloves are off.

"Bamboo for Gardens" by Ted Jordan Meredith (publ: Timber) You might know that Cheryl and I are strong advocates of bamboo which has so many uses beyond the merely decorative. This book focuses on the use of bamboo to provide exotic elegance in the private garden and addresses concerns about the potential invasiveness of bamboo. By the way, if you're looking for a non-running bamboo, my recommendation is a variety known as Green Panda.

"The Self-Sustaining Garden: The Guide to Matrix Planting" by Peter Thompson (publ: Timber) If you are unable or unwilling to devote a great deal of time to your landscape, this might be the book for you. It explores the theme of combining plants successfully into what the author calls "self governing-communities" to create gardens that require less maintenance and fewer chemical controls.

Nothing beats getting out into the garden and feeling the soil between your fingers, but getting lost in a really good gardening comes a close second!