GardenDesignOnline

Books: Garden Basics

You might want to buy this book for the whimsical, mod illustrations alone. What's on the cover is a dandelion and a dog rose. In The Joy of Weeds, A Celebration of Wild Plants (Portico Books, 2022), British artist and printmaker Paul Farrell profiles 50 weeds you may want to reconsider before pulling them out of your garden. Each entry has a stunning print and a page that includes a description of the plant, along with quirky historical factoids and a summary of ways the plant can be used.

Did you know that the dog rose (Rosa canina), a valuable source of Vitamin C,  was sent to the front lines during the Second World War to boost the health of British soldiers?  Did you know that Buddleia davidii is named after the Reverend Adam Buddle, a 17th century English botanist and cleric? And that it symbolizes resurrection, rebirth, and a new beginning? 

As Farrell says, "I hope to show you the joy of weeds and to go some way to help rewild ourselves by understanding the benefits of weeds as medicines, food sources and importance for wildlife. One person's weed is another's treasured wild plant, first aid kit, fortified tea, salad garnish, ornamental cutting, power pollinator and all-round wild force."  Yes! You want this fascinating field guide.

 

As a box on the back of this book proclaims, "Gardening is Climate Activism." In Grow Now (Timber Press, 2022), author/designer/organic gardener Emily Murphy covers all the basics of what she calls "regenerative gardening." As she says in the introduction, when people garden, "...we can repair ourselves and our plots of earth with our own two hands.  When we then connect these spaces to other gardens, parks, and pen spaces through living greenways, nature has the opportunity to repair itself and to restore its resiliency."  She shows the reader how to plan, design, and grow a garden filled with edibles, plants that attract wildlife and support biodiversity. If you want to help save the planet, put this book on your bookshelf.  And check out Murphy's blog, Pass the PIstil.

 

For a different take on the same subject, consider The Regenerative Garden: 80 Practical Projects for Creating a Self-Sustaining Garden Ecosystem (Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc, 2022) by Canadian author and gardener Stephanie Rose.  In the introduction to the book, she says "Regenerative is beyond the concept of sustainability....It's a space that can thrive on its own without human input, as Mother Nature has been doing since the beginning."  She starts with the basics of soil, water, planting, then moves on to projects that deal with climate issues, reducing waste, encouraging diversity, and community gardening.  Just a few of her "projects" include rain gardens, self-watering planters, companion plants, espaliers, gardens for bees, integrated pest management, planting a wildlife hedge. It's a valuable book for anyone who wants to turn their yard into a functioning ecosystem.

 

You might first want to ask, What's a Forest Garden? You'll find out everything you might want to know in The Home-Scale Forest Garden (Chelsea Green Publishing 2022) by self-taught gardener and retired clinical psychologist Dani Baker.  She explains throughout the book how to create a garden that needs no weeding, watering, fertilizing, mulching, spraying for pests and diseases. There are chapters on planning an implementing a forest garden, and others on choosing overstory and understory trees, shrubs, ground covers, vines and fungi, and how to group plants for the best results.  It also has lovely photos, drawings, and very useful lists of plants.

 

 

Books: Kitchen Gardens with Style

Vegetable gardens can look pretty messy, especially when not designed by a professional.  So if that's not your style, you might want to take a look at The Elegant & Edible Garden (Cool Springs Press, 2022) by Linda Vater.  She's a self-taught designer, but you wouldn't guess that from this beautiful and very useful book. 

As she says in the introduction, "This isn't a book about soil pH, insect and fungal issues, or double-digging .... This is a book about capturing the romance, the artistry, and the experiential nature of a garden and garden living.  It is a book about designing a garden that is distinctly yours, using edibles as ornamentals, with lots of pictures for inspiration and emulation."

In the UK, Vater takes you to kitchen gardens in the Cotswolds and to Rosemary Verey's garden in Gloucestershire, and she tells how to adapt elements in those gardens to your own.  She tells you what factors to consider when planning your garden, such as soil type, sun exposure, and most importantly, lifestyle; and how to formulate a plan for the design. I liked her "takeouts" on Plants for Tightly Pruned Hedges, and particularly her Fundamentals for enclosures, focal points, garden structures, color, and tips for garden composition.

If you want something a little special for your herbs and vegetables, as well as lovely blooms, this is the book for you.

Note: Commissions Earned

Books: Two for Dedicated Gardeners

Seems like everyone this year is into veg gardening because of covid, so this is just the book you need. In Kitchen Garden Revival: A modern guide to creating a stylish small-scale, low-maintenance edible garden (Cool Springs Press, 2020), author Nicole Johnsey Burke takes you through all the steps to create an artful, sophisticated vegetable garden.

Burke, who you can find on the web at Gardenary, lets you know right off that a veg garden is not a part of your garden that has to be ugly.  Rather, it can be a small, beautifully designed corner, a large space farther out from the house -- you name it.  Aside from guiding you through the design process, she tells you how to build a healthful garden, what to grow and how, along with all the things you can make from your harvest.  Simply a terrific book for anyone who wants to try their hand at growing the things you love.

This book takes a different approach, but yes, you can grow vegetables in your front yard, too, if you like.  Author Tara Nolan, in Gardening Your Front Yard: Projects and Ideas for Big and Small Spaces - Includes Vegetable Gardening, Pollinator Plants, Rain Gardens, and More! (Cool Springs Press, 2020), makes front yards the focus for almost anything you want to do in the garden. You can make it a space for community socializing and entertaining; grow vegetables; add spectacular plants for four-season interest; bring in the wildlife; and much more.

I particularly liked the chapter on front-yard embellishments: a sedum carpet for the driveway area; a wrought iron fence that provides transparency; permeable pavers; a mowing border; hedges, pathways, pergolas and arbors. 

So ... get rid of that boring lawn, draw inspiration from this book, and turn your front yard into a show-stopping masterpiece. Find more ideas at Nolan's website, Savvy Gardening.

Books: Summer Reading

This book will be the bible for people who cultivate orchids and for people who want to grow them. In Orchid Modern: Living and Designing with the World’s Most Elegant Houseplants (Timber Press, 2019), Marc Hachadourian, curator of the orchid collection at the NY Botanical Garden, takes you through everything you need to know to grow and design with the world's most precious plants. "It all starts," he says, "with just one orchid," but if you're a person who loves plants and flowers, "orchids have a way of working themselves into your life."  And he tells you just how to do it.:how to grow them indoors or out, how to help them flourish, how to identify and deal with pests and diseases. Best of all, he shows you how to create with orchids: making terrariums, wreaths, kokedama (Japanese display), bonsai, penjing, a hanging mobile, and much more.  And finally, the back sections identifies the different orchid species and how to grow them.  It's a book you'll want for the day when it starts "with just one orchid."

 

And while we're talking houseplants, consider Creative Terrariums: 33 Modern Mini-Gardens for Your Home (Fox Chapel Publishing) Step-by-Step Cutting-Edge, Contemporary Designs to Add a Decorative Organic Presence to Even the Smallest Room (Fox Chapel Publishing, 2019) by Enid Svymbersky, who blogs at A Charming Project. She explains the basics of creating terrariums, then profiles 30 different terrariums you can create, from a seaside-inspired planting inside of a shell to others inside glass containers (even one inside a martini glass) and others hanging inside lightbulbs.

Read it this summer, and get inspired for some spectacular fall projects.

 

I'm not sure you could grow veg crops in a terrarium, but British author Alex Mitchell, in Crops in Tight Spots (Kyle Books, 2019), says you can definitely grow mushrooms underneath your bed!

Whether it's windowsills or window boxes, or outdoor containers of various sizes, she explains how to get great produce out of small spaces.  Mitchell tells you the best fruit trees to grow in pots (different fig, apple, pear, cherry varieties); edible plants for tabletops; pots full of pickles; and hanging baskets filled with fruits. There are also solutions for small gardens, windy roofs and balconies, as well as steps and alleys.

So if you think you have no room to grow your own, go out and get this book.

 

One of the best things about gardening, of course, is the wildlife that shows up to appreciate what you've done for them.  Naturalist David Mizejewski of the National Wildlife Federation tells you how to connect with natural world in National Wildlife Federation(R): Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife, Expanded Second Edition (Creative Homeowner) 17 Projects & Step-by-Step Instructions to Give Back to Nature (Fox Chapel Publishing, 2019).  It's the second edition of this practical guide to attract butterflies, birds, and other beneficials into your garden. And as MIzejewski says in the introduction to the guide, "... more than one-third of America's wildlife is at risk of extinction in the coming decades.  While the situation sounds grim, you might be surprised to learn that you can help reverse this alarming decline for some species by creating your own wildlife habitat garden." He lists the trees, shrubs and perennials that provide food and shelter for wildlife and help restore the natural habitat.  There is much, much more, and I encourage each and every gardener to read this book and implement some of its important advice.

Books: Veg Garden Design Elements

The problem with most vegetable gardens is that they look like veg gardens, unless they are fenced off and away from the main designed landscape.

However, in Build a Better Vegetable Garden: 30 DIY Projects to Improve your Harvest (Frances Lincoln Ltd., 2017), British author Joyce Russell offers 30 projects that will make the veg garden even in a very small landscape stand out for good design.

Why buy an obelisk just like the ones you might see everywhere when you can build one that reflects your personality and complements your garden theme? I loved Russell's simple frame for an espaliered cherry tree (you could substitute many others) made from simple timbers (like 2x2s) and bamboo canes.  Plus, she shows you how to hinge it so you can, when needed, paint the wall behind it.

An ingenious drying cabinet will give you loads of pleasure in dried apples, pears, tomatoes, you name it. And wait until you study the hinged door in the tool cabinet that gives you loads of extra space -- and the copper-bottomed cold frame that deters slugs and snails.

All the above-mentioned items look terrific -- like they might have come from a trendy garden store -- so if you have a yen to build things yourself, this is the book for you.

Books: Thinking of Veggies

Everyone who grows vegetables naturally wants the most out of each plant.  Now, there is expert advice from Colin McCrate and Brad Halm, former CSA farmers and founders of the Seattle Urban Farm Company, a firm that designs, builds, and maintains edible gardens. In their new book,  High-Yield Vegetable Gardening: Grow More of What You Want in the Space You Have (Storey Publishing, 2015), the authors take you through all the steps to get the most out of your garden, no matter what the size. They show you how to plan your garden for what you need or what you want.  They cover all the bases, from crop rotation to seed selection and storage, soil preparation, irrigation, pests and disease, supressing weeds, and extending the growing season.  In other words, everything you need to understand for a successful vegetable garden. The book is filled with useful charts and drawings to make sure you'll have a bountiful harvest.

  And if you're really into growing vegetables, you may want to consider Blue Ribbon Vegetable Gardening: The Secrets to Growing the Biggest and Best Prizewinning Produce (Storey Publishing, 2015) by Jodi Torpey, a garden writer and editor-in-chief of WesternGardens.com.  Torpey's book could make you a winner at the state fair or at other competitions.  She'll show you how to grow the biggest pumpkin, the best-tasting tomato, straight instead of crooked cucumbers.  And of course much more.  It's for those truly dedicated to vegetable growing ... or those who want a lot more from every plant.

Books: The Tiny Veg Garden

As I'm staring out at mountains of snow, it's hard to believe that anything is actually going to emerge from the ground.  But there is always hope, and when I think of edible gardening, I always think of an acquaintance who grows more than enough to feed a family of four in moveable containers on her deck. 

If you'd like to give that a try, order a copy of Karen Newcomb's The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden: Grow Tons of Organic Vegetables in Tiny Spaces and Containers (Penguin Random House, 2015).  In this new and revised edition, Newcomb still claims that a five foot square garden bed will produce a minimum of 200 pounds of vegetables in a season.  There's new info on heirloom veggies, organic production, along with garden plans for patios, containers, raised beds, herb gardens, and in-ground gardens in spaces as small as four feet square. 

If  you don't want to or can't fuss with a large veg garden, then this is likely the book for you.  The original version has sold over half a million copies.

Floating Veg Garden

This is a very cool idea -- a Floating vegetable garden in Uppsala, Sweden -- featured in Metropolis Magazine.

photo: erik wahlstrom -click to enlarge

This park was designed to promote urban gardening ... it's actually a non-permanent installation, a garden installed atop a platform in the river.

Read the full story by Zachary Edelson (and see more photos) in Metropolis here.

And why not more floating gardens everywhere?

Design: CVS in Your Front Yard

click to enlarge images

It's kind of difficult to imagine, but this house is on a cul-de-sac in West Roxbury, MA sandwiched in back of a public library and, to the side, an enormous CVS drugstore.  The street runs between the library and the side wall of the CVS, and, as you're sitting on this front porch, what a view: you're looking at the massive red wall of the drugstore.

So, the owner decided to incorporate the wall into her garden. Now, it's home to trellises, roses, hydrangeas, and lots of other shrubs and perennials. (Unfortunately, not all yet in bloom). 

Since there's a full-size swimming pool in the backyard, it only made sense to make use of the sunny site in front and erase that CVS in the imagination. Perfect for a vegetable garden -- the trellises awaiting climbing veggies. 

More on the backyard of this garden later ... this was on a Garden Conservancy tour last weekend.

 

Books: Food & Flowers

 Author Niki Jabbour wrote a terrific book a few years back on vegetable gardening (The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live) and now, while the subject is related, she's written about some of the best food-producing gardens designed by some of the country's top garden writers, designers, and growers.

In  Groundbreaking Food Gardens: 73 Plans That Will Change the Way You Grow Your Garden (Storey Publishing, 2014), you'll learn much from author Debra Prinzing's Edible Cutting Garden; grower Renee Shepherd's Gourmet Containers; "Tomato Man" Craig LeHoullier's Best Tasting Tomatoes Garden; food historian Dave DeWitt's Chile Lover's Garden; landscape designer Jesse Bloom's Eggs & Everthing Garden; and there are many more. Each of the 73 gardens is profiled in two or three pages, and garden plans are included, along with plant lists, tips and techniques, and easy-to-follow illustrations. Jabbour covers the gamut, from small urban patio gardens to large suburban landscapes.  It's a great resource, and with a little creativity, you could mix & match many of these designs and plants.

And if this long winter is making you pine for spring flowers (not a daffodil yet in sight in my New England yard), you might want to consider The Cut Flower Patch: Grow your own cut flowers all year round (Frances Lincoln Limited Publishers, 2014) by British writer and horticulturist Louise Curley. Curley covers all the basics about cut flower gardening, and she includes advice on the best hardy annuals and biennials to spring and summer bulbs and foliage and filler plants.  The photos of her gardens and cut flower arrangements are simply stunning.  Another great resource, and a good book to give to clients who want a cutting patch included in their landscape design.