How green is your winter?
Books and magazines to inspire gardeners
The garden world in print might appear to be shrinking, but there are still a good number of recently published books that any gardener or garden lover would appreciate receiving for the holidays.
Here is my preferred list, ranging from edibles to fruit porn, glorious photo books, inspirational landscapes and private gardens, as well as some educational moments and two beautifully curated magazines.
66 Square Feet: A Delicious Life, One Woman, One Terrace, 92 Recipes By Marie Viljoen Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2013
This is a beautifully written gem of a book, sort of like a love letter to New York City, written in recipe form. Marie Viljoen is originally from South Africa, born to a family with gardening traditions and seasonal cooking skills. After coming to the United States to fulfil a career in opera, she experienced an emotional shift and recreated herself as a rooftop garden designer, finding her real voice. Inspired by her popular blog (66squarefeet. blogspot.ca), this charming book mirrors every month with matching menus, each preceded by her own personal snapshot of life in the big city.
Fruit: Edible, Inedible, Incredible By Wolfgang Stuppy Earth Aware Editions, 2013
You might not ultimately care whether or not a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, but you will never again just pop a piece of fruit into your mouth without staring at its insides after looking at this book. Yes, it is well researched and gives the reader an understanding of the functions of fruit — to aid in the dispersal of seeds — but it is the spectacular digital images in this book that will thrill you.
Virginia Woolf’s Garden By Caroline Zoob Jacqui Small LLP, 2013
Caroline Zoob, a Londoner and expert embroiderer, saw an advertisement in the Evening Standard newspaper looking for tenants to move into Virginia Woolf’s house in a small Sussex village. The book is the story of her and her husband’s 10-year stint in this National Trust property, managing the garden, peering from behind the curtains as visitors made the rounds outside and uncovering much about the real Virginia Woolf and her horticulturist husband, Leonard.
Planting: A New Perspective By Noel Kingsbury and Piet Oudolf Timber Press, 2013
This book, by powerhouse designers Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury (who is also a masterful photographer), will make you want to go out and completely redo your garden. It contains not only food for thought about their shared new gardening outlook valuing diversity and sustainability, but also provides us with the actual planting plans for Oudolf’s existing famous gardens, like the High Line and his home at Hummelo in the Netherlands.
How to Eradicate Invasive Plants By Teri Dunn Chace Timber Press, 2013
Maybe not pretty, but a good solid resource that some of us need more than others, published by the serious folks at Timber Press.
Private Edens: Beautiful Country Gardens By Jack Staub and Rob Cardillo Gibbs Smith, 2013
If you’d like to live vicariously through a book, then this lavishly photographed one is for you. It highlights 21 northeast American gardens belonging to some very privileged homeowners. We can dream, can’t we?
The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage By David L. Culp Timber Press, 2012
David Culp’s two-acre Pennsylvania country garden shows an English temperament, with pastel perennials, white picket fences and tapestry plantings in both sun and shade.
This award-winning book is an excellent lesson in how to make a beautiful garden look easy, with plants that overlap and are nothing short of symphonic in their relationship with one another.
Principles of Ecological Landscape Design By Travis Beck Island Press, 2013
Travis Beck, a trained landscape architect and horticulturist, works as the Landscape and Gardens project manager at the renowned New York Botanical Garden. This important book is not at all dry and academic, although it is largely intended for the landscape professional (i.e. no colour photos). It champions the creation of gardens primarily as ecosystems in this new, more sustainable 21st century.
Eastern Ontario Gardener’s Guide
Jim Cooper, 3rd edition 2012
If you don’t have this guide already, it is a must have for all area garden lovers. Lots of places to visit that you might not know about.
Wilder wilderquarterly.com
Pure Green Magazine puregreenmag.com (Both magazines published quarterly)
With minimal advertising, these alternative periodicals are chockfull of seasonal articles that appeal to the gardener, artist, designer, foodie and nature lover.