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Garden Titles (III) for Christmas

New Books on Plants - Older Books for Xmas

It's always hard to find exactly what you want in plant identification books. Not enough detailed photos, no mention of common problems, not enough emphasis on the best cultivars or plant sizes.  The Homeowner's Complete Tree & Shrub Handbook: The Essential Guide to Choosing, Planting, and Maintaining Perfect Landscape Plants by Penelope O'Sullivan (Storey Publishing, 2007) solves a lot of those problems.  The introductory section discusses how to use plants in the landscape, then moves on to choosing the right plant for the right place, with excellent lists of trees and shrubs for sun & shade, wet & dry soils, etc.  In addition, the author has lists you seldom see elsewhere: top choices for standout barks, colorful evergreens, unusual textures, striking silhoutettes.

Another section on plant care covers major diseases, pollution-tolerant plants and also planting, pruning, and rejuvenating shrubs. Each entry in the A to Z list of trees and shrubs has a general plant description, an excellent section on landscape use, followed by "Designer's Choice" -- a listing of the best cultivars on the market. Photographs by Karen Bussolini would be quite helpful in identification.

This book would make a wonderful Christmas present for almost any gardener you know.

 

For Viburnum Lovers

If you don't yet have a viburnum in your garden, you're missing out on one of the greatest versatile shrubs in the plant kingdom.  As is his custom, horticulturist Michael Dirr has strong opinions about plants, and in this volume, Viburnums: Flowering Shrubs for Every Season (Timber Press, 2007) they are most welcome.  He lets you know which viburnums are the best in terms of flowers, berries, fall color, form, and size.  There are extensive lists of cultivars for each entry, and Dirr also lets you know how to use each plant.  Accompanied by gorgeous photos, this book will make gardeners all over the country make room somewhere for several of these spectacular plants.

A Must-Have for Hostas

I can't say enough good things about this series of plant guides, and the latest, the Timber Press Pocket Guide to Hostas (Timber Press Pocket Guides) by Diana Grenfell is no exception.  This handbook, small enough to fit in a medium-sized handbag, is indispensable when you're shopping for hostas. It lists plant size and leaf shape, color and texture for almost 300 of the best hostas on the market, both old cultivars and new ones. Excellent photos help you identify which ones you really want.

(click on image or text link to purchase book)

Garden Gifts (Small Stuff) 07

10 Years of Horticulture

No chance of missed issues with this present ... 10 years of Horticulture Magazine on CD-ROM, 1996-2006, searchable by subject, author, etc. Original text, photos, artwork, you name it.   A lot easier than piles or files filled with old magazines with an article in there somewhere that you'd like to find ...

For the Sun-Challenged

Many of my landscape design clients are bothered by plant requirements for "full sun," "partial sun," and the like.  Now, here's a device from Burpee that'll supposedly take all the guess work out of the equation.

You push the calculator into the ground, let it sit there for awhile, and it'll tell you how much sun that location receives.  Presumably you can move it around the garden and figure out which beds are best for sun, part-sun, etc.  Sounds like it's worth a try... it gets good comments on the Burpee site, although I doubt they'd put up any bad reviews. 

Easy Carry-Alls

I've had one of these flexible carry-alls from Gardener's Supply  for several years, and I highly recommend them for gardening chores.  They're lightweight, washable, stackable, and they won't tip over when you fill them with soil or weeds or cuttings or crops or whatever else.

And now, they come in a variety of cheerful colors.  Believe me, you won't regret having a couple of these containers, and you'll likely end up throwing out all those other useless carry-alls piled up in the garden shed.

(images from respective suppliers)

Garden Titles (II) for Christmas 07

A New Take on Old Ideas

A revolution is taking place these days in garden design. Outdoor designs should be artworks in and of themselves ... not just plants and materials and time-tested design concepts.  In his new book, Making the Modern Garden  (Monacelli Press, 2007), British landscape architect  Christopher Bradley-Hole introduces the landscapes of many practitioners that are in the forefront of modern design.  "Making gardens," he says, "should be a liberation, an opportunity for freedom of thought and expression."

And that's exactly what you get in the simple and serene amphitheatre designed by Stephen Stimson Associates of Falmouth MA.  It's levels are defined by concentric arcs of grass and stone and punctuated by an irregular planting of trees that echo the natural plantings in the adjacent woods.

Bradley-Hole's own striking designs are scattered throughout the book, along with small axonometric drawings that illustrate exactly how these new gardens are put together.  There are stunning photographs of almost unimaginable new design concepts, from the dancing water jets of Andrew Ewing at the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden in Surrey, UK to a Texas wildflower meadow planted by Neil Diboll of the Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin to the ultra-modern landscape designed by Andrea Cochran and Topher Delaney for the Portland, OR Art Museum.

In every chapter, Bradley Hole connects the old to the new and demonstrates how any designer can meld the traditional with the bold and new in gardens that are definitely 21st century.

(click on image or text link to purchase book)

Garden Gift Suggestions (II) 07

Gifts for Outdoor Spaces

I really like the idea of this garden pole lantern containing a generous-sized candle from H. Potter, where you'll find a lot of unusual items for your patio, your pool, your outdoor dining terrace.  Birdfeeders are often quite unattractive, but the one shown here would look great viewed from any inside window (although the birds might not appreciate the mod design).

I also liked many of H. Potter's copper urns, window boxes and planters, in particular the Zen planter shown here, a great addition in any garden that features a lot of bamboo or other asian-style plantings.

H.  Potter also carries garden furniture, arbors and trellises,  outdoor  garden screens, and many good-looking outdoor lighting fixtures. A lot to choose from for the discerning gardener.

(images: H.Potter)

Great Container Sale

Saturday Dec 1st - 10AM-3PM Somerset, NJ

Seibert-Rice Annual Container Sale

Seibert & Rice markets hand-made terracotta Italian containers, and they are frost-proof to minus 20 degrees.  These are some of the finest looking containers you'll ever encounter, and styles range from the very traditional to quite modern, like the cone vase shown here.

So if you're anywhere within driving range of Somerset, NJ, (near Edison, not far from the intersection of the NJ Tpke and 287) head on down to Atlock Farm, 545 Weston Canal Road, for the super sale of urns, containers of all sorts, stautuary and accessories.  For example, the cone vase shown here usually retails for $1300, but on Saturday it'll be $715, quite a discount.  Seibert-Rice will also be selling its striking topiaries, holiday orchids, and offering food and drink as well. For more information, check their website or call 973-467-8266.

Garden Gift Suggestions 07 (I)

I can't think of a better gift for a gardener or designer than a gift membership to one of your local gardens. I belong to gardens that aren't even in the area where I live, just in order to take advantage of the great info in their newsletters and/or publications, advance notice on upcoming events, plant sales, and other special offerings.  And public gardens need our support, too, so put those memberships way up on your Christmas lists.

And, speaking of public gardens, some of their gift shops offer pretty cool items for gardeners.
At the NY Botanical Garden's online shop, you can order a christmas tree ornament in the shape of the garden's conservatory (pictured here); beautiful notepads and note cards and lovely mugs with various botanical designs. They offer plants, as well.  I particularly liked the collection of four small ornamental grasses -- Carex 'Amazon Mist,' Festuca ovina 'Glauca,' Carex flagellifera 'Bronzita,' and Carex 'Red Rooster.'  Surely you could keep them going inside until early spring, when they could be planted out in the garden.  This online shop has a very wide selection of attractive items for sale -- including many for children -- so do check it out.

At the the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's online shop, there is also a wide array of items.  Tools for the gardener, items for the home, plus books, calendars, knockout gift cards and journals, tiles of various design (the dragonfly tile is shown here), jewelry, botanical prints to die for, and for children:  a grow-your-own carniverous plant set.

Finally, at the Winterthur shop, you can order a Chinese lantern and berry wreath, christmas cards, jewelry, wondrous miniatures for the dollhouse, beautiful garden ornaments and urns (lovebird cachepots shown here), and garden stakes reminiscent of what you might see in the Winterthur gardens.  And if you haven't been there, make sure you plan a future trip to Delaware.

(click on images -- from each garden shop -- for larger view).

Mod Wicker, Danish Modern Remade

I Can't Believe It's Wicker!

The difference is, this wicker is made of synthetic materials that can withstand sunlight and bad weather to make it a perfect outdoor choice.  But it's the design -- Italian and imported -- that make Emu Wicker so outstanding.  The frame is aluminum, the feet are plastic,
and the chairs are made to stack one on top of the other.

Emu was founded in Italy in 1951, and offers a variety of great looking contemporary outdoor furniture by some of the country's top designers.  The small hourglass shaped table was designed by Italian Alfredo Chiaramonte and Australian Mark Marin.  The wicker table with tempered glass top is just one of the Emu designs that this duo has produced, all available in the United States from Spacify, a source for contemporary European furniture based in Redwood City, CA.  There are many more designs available in wicker, including chairs, tables, and even chaise lounges for poolside.

I also liked Spacify's Ocean dining chair from Denmark --which looks like it would be right at home on one of those large private yachts that ply the upscale marinas, but it would also go very well under a shaded pergola on a dining patio for a stylish, unconventional home.  It's got a stainless steel frame and a plastic back and seat, and it comes in white, olive green, and black.

Danish modern updated for the 21st century.

While we're at it, how about another Danish garden innovation, the Clipper garden bench? It seats three (obviously), and has a stainless steel frame to support the slatted teak back and seat. It's simple and elegant, and could be at home on almost any style garden or patio.

Luytens bench, move over!

And check out dozens of other modern outdoor designs on Spacify's website. You won't be disappointed.

(images courtesy Spacify)

(click on images for larger view) 

Gardening in Style

If you're like me, you're out in the garden in your oldest clothes, jeans and a sweatshirt, or shorts, a tee and a baseball hat.  But that's not for everybody.  So Kara Buttimer came up with some pretty stylish togs for the gardening set when she started her new business, Angela's Garden.  The hat pictured above comes with matching lanolin-infused lambskin gloves; a cotton canvas apron with big pockets for seed packets, garden tools, etc; and a multi-purpose tote bag with seven outside pockets and elastic cords to hold tools in place, three large inside pockets, and even two bottle holders.  Everything's machine washable, too.  Aside from the blue swirl pattern pictured here, there's a pink floral collection, a black and white toile collection, and separate gloves, aprons, and hats in different colors and styles. All of the cotton canvas items are SPF-37, so you can work outside in the sun with a little less worry.

If you have daughters, nieces, or grand-daughters, how could you resist the bumblebee collection, above right?  It also comes in blue "crazy circles" and pink floral.

You can find these items at many local garden centers; at Amazon.com: the Pink Stripe Gardening Hat, and apron; the children's collection at: the online Discovery Channel Store, melange4women.com and soon at the online store of the New York Botanical Garden.  An added plus is that Kara donates a portion of all profits to Save the Children.

And all of you guy gardeners out there -- your wife or girlfriend might really like something like this.

(click on images for larger view)

Christmas Books (Last) 2006

Everyone's heard of Louis XIV and his fabulous palace at Versailles, outside of Paris.  But Versailles would not be what is was and still is without the great talent of Andre Le Notre, the Sun King's principle garden designer. In "The Sun King's Garden," (Bloomsbury USA 2006), British author Ian Thompson tells the amazing story of the gardens' creation. Over a period of more than 30 years, Le Notre gained the trust and respect of Louis XIV, and their collaboration produced the most extensive gardens in Europe.  Le Notre inspired generations of gardening engineers and architects, and his Grand Style -- with formal parterres, optical illusions, massive waterworks and clipped trees and shrubs -- is studied and copied by designers even today.  Thompson leaves out nothing as he reveals the incredible details that went into the gardens at Versailles: politics, intrigue, envy, power, intellect, culture -- you name it.  This is a joyful and absolutely fascinating book for any gardener, designer, architect, historian or Francophile you know -- or just about anyone else.
(click on image above to order book)

And, there must a garden somewhere in Buffalo that draws upon at least a couple of Le Notre's design principles. Find out with "Garden Walk Buffalo: A Celebration of Urban Gardens" (Buffalo Heritage Unlimited, Inc, 2006).  This book contains stories and beautiful photos -- as well as a CD --  of some of the now 250 or so gardens on display one weekend every summer in Buffalo, New York.

The book includes gardens of all types -- quiet backyard oases; explosions of front-yard color and texture; formal espaliers; perennial madness and Asian simplicity.  It's all here, plus an explanation of how to organize a gardenwalk in your own community.  And royalities on the book go to community gardens in the Buffalo area -- and what could be better than that.
(click on either link above to purchase book)

Xmas 2006 Gifts III

For the outdoor lounge-about:

Frontgate has lush chair cushions -- made of sunbrella fabric -- in many patterns, colors, and sizes.  They won't fade in the sun, they're water repellent, and they're said to resist chlorine, soil, and stains.  And they wipe clean with a sponge.  Pillows and more on the website.

 

Also from Frontgate, this elegant Oak Park Residence cast stone planter -- a reproduction of a Frank Lloyd Wright design.  A little different from most planters you see in garden centers -- but it would actually work in a traditional or a modern garden.  It comes in cream or limestone and has a 10 year warranty against freeze-thaw damage.  There are also three other Wright designs in the series.