It is that time of year again: gift-giving days. I always search for the newest and best for my gardening friends, and this year there seems to be no end to the selection. There is something great on nearly every topic.
My first choice this year is “Succulents Simplified” by Debra Lee Baldwin. I think that it is important because of the rapidly rising popularity of these plants. Not only are succulents very easy to grow, but the varieties are endless. Baldwin focuses on just 100 of the plants, her favorites, and shows how to grow and care for them. She offers some step-by-step projects, too: building a cake stand centerpiece, a vertical garden, and special-occasion bouquets. The book is an easy read and once you have finished it, you are sure to want to start a collection of this group of plants that is so diverse in shape, color and form.
Another area of growing interest is container gardening. Let’s face it: Wanting a home on a half-acre of land is a thing of the past. Not only are we shrinking down to smaller lots, we are concentrating on the areas right around the house and on the patio. Now we grow our flowers in large flower pots of mixed types of plants, our vegetables are growing in boxes, and we even have miniature fruit trees in containers. One of my favorite garden writers, P. Allen Smith, has just come out with “Container Gardens: 60 Container Recipes to Accent your Home Garden.” He shows how to create masterpieces in a very short time by using his innovative recipes that give lists of plants and materials and step-by-step instructions and advice on how to display the pieces.
And then there is this craze about fairy gardens. And they’re not just for children. Imagine a beautiful landscape of small plants and miniature furniture beautifully arranged in a bowl or basket or box that is only a dozen or so inches across. Each adorned with a miniature fairy fixture. My choice for this is “Gardening in Miniature” by Janit Calvo. She has made the genre more general just by taking out the fairies. Her book is a complete guide to creating lush, small-scale gardens, and it has all the information you need to start in this new hobby. She tells how to create, choose the right container and plant, with step-by-step instructions, not only the garden, but the stones, and furniture and the fences. Really a great read.
Gardening book lovers do not have to pay full price for everything. There are a couple of fantastic sources out there that sell older books, even remainders of newer ones. I look at these websites whenever I need to browse for a new topic I might be interested in. I do confess, though, that last year my children gave me a Kindle tablet and I find myself now ordering books for that and reading them there. The savings are quite good, and because I can vary the type size, the reading is very comfortable.
But back to the sources. The first one I order from is Edward R. Hamilton, bookseller. The company is located at Box 15, Falls Village, Conn. I could not find a phone number, but if you are on a computer they are easy to find and I believe that they have no less than 300 books on gardening available. As a matter of fact, they recently sent a 128-page catalog filled entirely with books on home, gardening and landscaping. I am sure they will send you a copy if you drop them a note.
A second good source is Daedalus Books at Box 6000, Columbia, Md. Once you are on their mailing list you will get a frequent mailing of their catalogs. They are online, too, at salebooks.com.
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