GIFT GUIDE: BOOKS FOR GARDENERS

Call me a traditionalist, but I love giving and receiving books for Christmas. Especially now, when real live books (the kind with pages) seem to be a novelty with some folks. I enjoy having a library of gardening reference books in my home, and I refer to them often. Here are some picks for books that the gardener in your life (or, um, you) might like to add to their library this year.

A quick note: All of these are affiliate links to Amazon, and if you choose to buy there I certainly appreciate you using my link, but please don't forget about your local book store, should you be fortunate enough to have one. Most book stores can order books for you, mostly likely in time for holiday gift-giving.

Cuttings: A year in the garden with Christopher Lloyd: This book is at the top of my personal list. I enjoy the late Christopher Lloyd's writing so much and love soaking in his knowledge gained in his Great Dixter garden.

Lessons from the Great Gardeners: This is also on my wish list. I love reference books but I also like a book I can cuddle up with and read cover to cover during the long winter days. I also crave information from other gardeners and this certainly sounds like it fits the bill.

Gardenista: The definitive guide to stylish outdoor spaces: I've not seen this book but I think it would be inspirational for creative or renovating new spaces.

Native Plants of the Midwest: Native plants are hot, hot, hot in the world of gardening and this series of regional guides offers information on how to incorporate them in your landscape. Not from the Midwest: Here's the same guide for the Southeast.

Epic Tomatoes: I bought this book last year and I wish I'd had it sooner. Anyone who strives to grow that perfect tomato will want this.

Planting in a Post-Wild World: I'll just say that I don't care for the dystopian sounding title of this book, but the concept is intriguing. According to the description the book is a "practical guide that describes how to incorporate and layer plants into plant communities to create an environment that is reflective of natural systems and thrives within our built world."

The Plant Lover's Guide to Clematis: The Plant Lover's series of books is excellent and I can't recommend it enough. Anyone with an affinity for a particular plant will refer back to these regularly, as I do with this one on Clematis. The Plant Lover's series also has guides to Hardy Geraniums, Primulas, Ferns, Epimediums, Salvias, Dahlias (this one is on my list), Asters, Sedums, Tulips and Snowdrops.

Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs: This isn't a new book but it is a hefty reference volume that any gardener with room to grow trees and and shrubs will enjoy having on his or her shelf. I gave it to my mom a few years ago and frequently swing by to look something up.  

Planting: A new perspective: There is no hotter gardener in the world at the moment than Piet Oudolf, whose prairie-inspired style (such as that found in Chicago's Lurie Garden) is much admired and often copied. Piet and his frequent partner Noel Kingsbury give the information needed to be successful with this style.

Rock Gardening: Reimagining a classic style: Rock gardening seems to be experiencing an resurgence but I feel like it's one those garden styles that can go bad quickly. This book imparts the knowledge of creating this style in an updated manner.

Will you be buying books as gifts this year?


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3 GREAT BOOKS FOR GIVING AND GETTING

I love giving and receiving books so perhaps it's serendipitous that it took me so long to write about this trio of books that that has inadvertently turned into a holiday shopping post.

The first is Charlotte Moss's Garden Inspirations. This oversized book is published by Rizzoli, which is known for beautiful, photo-filled books and this one is no exception. Page after page of gorgeous color-filled photos are a feast for the eyes.

The book is equally divided between matters of the garden and the interior, although the whole point of Charlotte Moss's way of thinking is that both of those areas should reflect each other. My absolutely favorite part of the book is a perspective drawing of her garden and house (I love it so much I think I'd like to have someone make one for me) that spans two pages, but every photo of her garden is incredibly inspirational. The photos of gorgeous table decorations and bouquets picked from the garden really put Martha Stewart to shame, not in the least because Charlotte Moss makes it look effortless while Martha certainly does not.

All photos courtesy of Rizzoli

But it's not just pretty pictures. Moss shares her go-to garden design tips, many gathered from a lifetime of touring great gardens all over the world, as well as interior design philosophies. I have a lot of books, but this is one that is beautiful enough to earn a spot on table, where it will be enjoyed, perhaps in bits and pieces, time and time again. Certainly any gardener or frequent entertainer would love this gem.

Next up is another beautiful book that will be a hit with gardeners with a strong appreciation for European history. A Day at Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a small book that comes in a beautiful little slipcase that is packed with great history and beautiful photos of the 17th century castle that inspired many of the great chateaux of Europe. The book is more about the castle than the gardens, although the two are obviously important to one another. If you have a Francophile on your list, this should be a hit.

And last on this little book tour is Habitat: The Field Guide to Decorating by Lauren Liess. To say that I'm enthusiastic about this book is putting it mildly. I love this thing (I preordered it months before it came out and sort of forgot about it so the surprise of receiving it was even sweeter). With Pinterest and Houzz, not to mention so many great blogs, one hardly needs to turn to books for interior design inspiration. So interior design books only appeal to me if I can get something from them other than a lot of pretty pictures (although I want those too, of course). If I'm going to shell out for a book, I want information that I can't get on a blog or website. I want to know HOW to make my house look like the ones in the pictures.

I've only bought two interior design books in recent memory: Sarah Richardson's Sarah Style and this book by Lauren (who I feel like I'm on a first-name basis with after reading her blog for several years), and that's because I happen to like both of their styles very much. Lauren's designs in particular have soul to them. I'm so sick of rooms that are so general anyone could walk into them and feel at home. I want my home to feel like me (or us). I want the objects in it to say something about me (so help me god if I ever buy books just because the spines are the right color to match my decor), and I think Lauren does this better than anyone. 

What's great about her book is that she details how to get certain looks and offers tips for every room in the house. She even weighs in on perennial design questions like mixing metals and creating a cohesive room. If you read decorating forums, you'll find that the holy grail of interior design is "timeless." No one wants a room that looks like it came out of a catalog circa 2000 (or any year, for that matter). Lauren tells you how to achieve that. I want to live in every room she designs and I can't think of higher acclaim than that. 

This book would be appreciated by anyone looking to create a home with soul, but I'll be honest. I don't think you should just buy it for your friends and family or wait for them to buy it for you. Pick it up; I promise you won't be disappointed (and this is coming from someone who paid more for it than it's currently selling for). 

What books will you be picking up for friends or yourself this year?

A note: I've provided links to all the books on Amazon, because who's kidding, that's the first place you think of when shopping for books. But if you have a great independently owned bookstore near you, please consider buying your books there. I don't mean to get preachy but there are few places in the world more comforting to be than a small, well-stocked bookstore where you can peruse to your heart's content and there are little signs on the shelf with recommendations from the staff.

GARDENERS, KNOW THY ENEMY (aka THE GARDENING SIN CONFESSIONAL IS OPEN)

Not too long ago I offered absolution of garden shopping sins and many of you took me up on that offer (don't worry, I'm an ordained minister of the Internet Church of the Garden so I'm entirely qualified to offer such absolution). I felt so much better about it that I ordered 40 willow rods the other day, and I only feel a little guilty about it. (It's Margaret Roach's fault.)

Recently a book showed up in my mailbox for review called Weeds of North America ($35, University of Chicago Press). Sounds like it would be good for insomniacs, right? I think perhaps it shows what a garden geek I've become that I am ridiculously excited about this book and know that it will be at the top of the garden book rack forever.

This isn't going to be one of those books that you pick up in the middle of winter for a jolt of inspiration. It's going to be a book whose pages are dog-eared and muddied, signs of being flipped through with hands straight from the garden, as I try to identify the latest unwelcome intruder in my garden.

But before I get into the book, I need to make another confession. I have done something horrible with a weed.

When I started gardening at our cottage about 12 years ago (it will be 13 years in June that we've owned the house but I didn't do any real gardening the first year), I was a novice gardener. I was also a poor gardener as we had tied up just about every penny we had in the house. I had big ideas and no budget so I was thrilled with whatever flowers I could find existing in the garden or free from friends and family.

What is now the circle garden was once a vegetable patch and when I started gardening there it was filled with a random assortment of weeds and shrubs that seemed to have been stuck in with little thought as to design.

One of the flowers that was blooming there was a delightful lavender number with cup-shaped flowers extending up a stem. It practically oozed cottage charm.

In one of our frequent walks around the yard, my mom said, "You know that's a weed, right?"

Although I was a decade removed from being a teenager, I gave a reply that could have come from any sassy 14-year-old's mouth.

"A weed is just a plant in the wrong place," I said. "I think it's pretty."

And my mom, who had been down this road with me on more than one occasion replied, "You'll be sorry."

Gardeners, listen to your mothers!

I'd never properly identified it until Weeds of North America showed up. That pretty flower is Campanula rapunculoides, aka creeping bellflower. Here's what Weeds of North America says about it:

Creeping bellflower is a weed of gardens, fence lines and occasionally cultivated fields. It is shade tolerant and able to survive in crops. It is a serious weed in lawns, where it competes with the turf, robbing it of moisture and nutrients.

Life cycle: Perennial reproducing by creeping rhizomes and seeds; plants may produce up to 3,000 seeds.

In other words, I'm screwed. I have tried to rid my garden of this plant. I even dug up an entire section of the circle garden a couple years ago in an attempt to dig it all up. It came back. I haven't allowed it to flower for several years now, but the rhizomes all but ensure that it will always be there.

It would be one thing if I alone was made to pay the price for my gardening ego that allowed me to think for one second that I knew better than my mother, an experienced gardener. But my sins go much further.

Since there were several plants sort of plunked in that area when we got the house, most of those were rehomed. And it also served as a holding bed for awhile, so while I was renovating other parts of the garden, I would stick plants there while I decided what their future was. I moved several ornamental grasses there when we ripped out the enormous bed of them off the patio. And then I decided I didn't have a need for all those grasses and I did what gardeners do: I shared them.

Some of them went to my mom. Others went to an ornamental garden in the middle of downtown that is maintained by volunteers, one of whom is my mom.

You can see where this is going, right? Creeping bellflower is starting to pop up in new places, namely the places where I so generously donated those ornamental grasses. I have infected other gardens and I feel horrible about it.

Had Weeds of North America been around 12 years ago, that probably wouldn't have happened. I could have looked it up and I would have known to get it out of my garden immediately instead of letting it flower (and therefore seed) all over the place.

Although it may be a book with a title that could probably become a joke on a late-night talk show (by the way, I don't fault the title; I like a reference book that says what it is outright), it is filled with beautiful photos by France Royer. Yes, weeds can be beautiful, especially when they are safely captured in the pages of a book much like Hans Solo frozen in carbonite. The writers did an excellent job of sticking to the main facts. Being concise is important in this book because, let's be honest, there are a lot of weeds to cover.

And that—the sheer number of weeds to be covered—is this book's biggest challenge. How do you begin to organize them all? Authors Richard Dickinson and Royer have done a yoeman's job, organizing them by leaf arrangement and flower color, but it can still be a little challenging to find what you're looking for. Fortunately the attractive layout and excellent photos make flipping through this book enjoyable.

There is no mention of how to rid yourself of the weed once you identify it. But then again, I also understand this: that's not the book's purpose. Also, I suspect the book's authors would be unwilling to wade into a controversial stance on when to use chemical solutions and when not to.

I've been waiting for this book.

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OK, folks, it's time to confess your weed-related sins? What's the worst weed-related thing you've done?

BOOK REVIEW: FIND YOUR GARDEN STYLE

I had two thoughts when I first saw Rochelle Greayer's book Cultivating Garden Style: that this book was completely different from every other gardening book I've seen, and that it must have been an incredible task to pull it together.

Maybe it's more helpful to tell you what Cultivating Garden Style is not. It's not a book that will tell you how to grow plants or what your garden should look like or hard and fast rules for garden design. Instead it will help you wade through the multitude of garden styles to identify what will work best for you.

Greayer accomplishes this through literally thousands of photos that are sensibly categorized and creatively displayed in a almost never-ending series of beautifully designed pages. I can't imagine the amount of work that went into just sourcing all of the photographs that appear in this book. The result is a feast for the eyes that serves to guide you in discovering what you might want your garden to look like. 

The book (nearly 300 pages of it) is organized into several garden styles with great names from Cottage au Courant to Sophisticated Taj. These styles are illustrated by excellent photos of actual gardens and often something akin to a mood board for a garden—images that are not necessarily meant as a literal description of what might be found in that garden but ones that depict the mood.

Greayer's writing style is well-edited; concise but not lacking in detail.

Several tips, tricks and projects are also sprinkled about the book. Making driftwood art, how to hang a tree swing and general plant suggestions for a specific style are just a few. In other places, photos of accessories that fit the style prove that Greayer is on the cutting edge of not just approachable garden design, but also interior (flowing to the exterior) design. 

That the book is so lovely to look at should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen Greayer's latest project, the gardening journal Pith & Vigor. P &V is chockablock with beautiful illustrations and interesting photographs designed in a refreshing way and printed on tabloid-size newsprint. It is notable for its design but the first issue had a great collection of articles in it. Greayer clearly has an excellent eye for design and it shows in everything she touches. 

Cultivating Garden Style should be the first stop for any homeowner looking to create a new garden or outdoor area and may spur a longtime gardener into finding the next identity for their garden's evolution or help them bring a sense of cohesion to a design lacking in focus.

Bring beauty inside with Indoor Plant Decor + a giveaway

I have only two indoor plants that I really care about. One is a spider plant I bought at the farmer's market the day I moved into my freshman year college dorm, making it, well, old enough to be at college itself. The other is a large ficus tree I got from my grandmother's house after her death. In her later years it also served as a Christmas tree of sorts, bedecked with red ribbons and a set of lights.

I have other indoor plants, but they take a back seat to these other two, and I have no doubt that were it not for their annual vacation outside during summer, when I actually take care of them along with the outdoor containers, they would have been goners long ago.

 Still, for a long time I've known that there was a whole other world of indoor plants out there. And that's where Indoor Plant Decor comes in.

The new book—a "design stylebook for houseplants," according to the subtitle—by Kylee Baumle and Jenny Peterson spoke to me from the first line of the introduction. "It used to be that indoor gardening meant a ficus tree in the corner of the living room, a pothos plant trailing from the top of the entertainment center and a row of African violets in the kitchen window."

Plants, Indoor Plant Decor proves, can be just as much a part of your home's decor as a throw pillow or decorative vase but with far more style and the benefits that come from plants, including some that actually purify the air in your house.

The book is unlike most gardening books, possibly because it straddles an interesting line between gardening and home decor. Although small in size, the book is big on information, and the size seems well suited to the layout. Each chapter starts with a scrapbook-style series of photos setting the scene for  a design aesthetic and finishes with a DIY project to create plant decor in that style.

The latter is where the book shines. Too often, projects spelled out in books are excessively complicated, but Indoor Plant Decor hits the right note with its easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions. Several projects are approachable enough that I found myself wanting to dig into them right away. Mini succulent cork planters are adorable and would be the ultimate in table decor-turned guest gift and the "planted book" is a creative take on plant design that you're not likely to find elsewhere.

While the front of the book is dedicated to inspiration and how-to, at the back of the book is an easy reference guide to houseplants. A list of houseplants ranked from "easy breezy" to "design divas"  is alone worth the book's cover price. Following that is some information on common houseplant ailments and basic care information. None of it is overly extensive or mind-numbing, instead it is the right amount of easy-to-access information.

Sentimental houseplants are great and Indoor Plant Design doesn't discount the importance or beauty of fiscuses like mine, and in fact the tips contained in the book will only help those plants thrive in my house. But the book leaves you looking at houseplants in a completely different way; one that makes you want to explore just what you could do for your home with a few plants.

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I have a great giveaway to make indoor gardening even more fun. The Bonsai Tool Set by DeWit Tools  is just the right size for maintenance of your Bonsais or other small plantings. Don’t let the size (6-7 inches) fool you, these tools are made with the same quality materials as the larger DeWit tools.

All four tools have blade made of Swedish boron steel and fitted with an ash hardwood handles from FSC Certified forests. The set comes with wood storage case and is guaranteed for life.

DeWit Tools has been producing hand forged Dutch garden tools in the north of Holland since 1898. Every DeWit tool grew out of a need to solve a gardening problem and today, 3rd and 4th generations run the DeWit factory. 

To enter, just use the Rafflecopter widget below and leave a comment telling me if you get sentimental about your indoor plants (or just tell me about your favorite indoor plant). You an also get an extra entry by following The Impatient Gardener on Facebook.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was so excited to be part of this blog book tour happening all over the gardening blogosphere today. Everyone who has reviewed the book is also giving away a great prize, so make sure to visit these bloggers and enter to win a great prize.

• The Rainforest Garden -- A collection of BG&H special publications
• Gardening Gone Wild -- $25 gift certificate to Logee's Greenhouse
• Cowlick Cottage Farm -- A Seed Keeper (these are so cool)
• The Casual Gardener -- Dramm pruners
• Dirt du jour -- Succulent plant kit
• Digging -- Another Bonsai tool set
• Not Just a Housewife -- Terrarium growing kit
• Personal Garden Coach -- Stainless steel watering can
• Gossip in the Garden -- Moss rocks

I was provided a copy of Indoor Plant Decor by St. Lynn's Press for review purposes. All opinions are my own. Indoor Plant Decor is available at Amazon.com and at booksellers throughout the country.