Cold Climate Gardening

A Good Book for Beginners
When I was in high school, I wanted to know more about gardening than I was able to learn. My gardening grandmother lived hundreds of miles away. The library had a set of Time-Life books on gardening that made me feel I needed a greenhouse, or at least a potting shed, before I could hope to succeed. Not only was there no internet, but there was no Fine Gardening, Garden Gate, or Martha Stewart Living. My mother would buy one bag of peat moss and a couple of six-packs of whatever flower I chose, and after that I was on my own.

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When I’m thinking of building a garden project, the first book I turn to for ideas and inspiration is Classic Garden Structures by Jan and Michael Gertley. I’ve read and leafed through many books on making and building objects for the garden but this one remains my favorite. Beyond their inherent usefulness, all of the projects are good looking, well-designed, and a pleasure to own and use. They are simple enough to be doable with only a few that are really challenging. I’m still thinking I might be able to build my dream greenhouse someday.

The Gertleys have a way of taking many common garden objects and making them extraordinary. Ornamental molding on tomato cages may sound peculiar but when you’ve seen how the Gertleys use it you will wonder why it isn’t commonly done. Many of the structures have finials, end caps, and posts with ornamental flourishes but instead of looking fey or twee you will be saying yes! to yourself as you’re reading.

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The Intimate Garden: Twenty Years and Four Seasons in Our Garden by Gordon and Mary Hayward belongs to the rare breed of landscape design book that is actually helpful:
One private residential garden–not little glimpses of a dozen gardens
The garden was developed over many years. (They figured it out as they went along)
They tell you the problem, solutions considered, and what they finally implemented
They tell you about their mistakes, and how they corrected them
There is a labeled map of the whole gardenI only know of one other book with the same scope that is so helpful, and that is Mary Keen’s Creating a Garden. But Mary Keen lives in Great Britain, and even while drooling over the gorgeous photos of her garden, I’m always wondering, “Is that hardy here?”

The Haywards, on the other hand, live in Vermont, in Zone 4, and I can be fairly certain that if a plant grows for them, it will grow for me.

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I am a sweet pea ignoramus. I tried growing them once, after reading an article in an early Fine Gardening issue. I thought they’d be just perfect climbing up the chicken wire fence surrounding the chicken yard, and after learning how fragrant they were, well, I couldn’t wait. They did rather poorly, and though I’m sure I chose a variety guaranteed to be fragrant, there wasn’t enough of a fragrance to make a lasting impression. Sigh.

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Quite a while back I cast aspersions on the ability of a southerner to write a book about northern gardening. I take it back. Felder Rushing has done an excellent job writing Tough Plants for Northern Gardens: Low Care, No Care, Tried and True Winners. Mr. Rushing, sir, I apologize.

Turns out the man has done a lot of traveling, and what’s more, he was paying attention and taking notes the whole time, or, as he puts it, “While looking for real gardens in the older parts of town, I have spent more time backing up for a second look than going forward.” (p. 23) As you might expect from a man who also wrote Passalong Plants, Rushing is not interested in pushing the latest patented hybrids. He is writing a book for those who sorta think they might like to garden, but feel intimidated. He wants gardening to be as common sense and matter-of-fact for these people as it was for their grandparents or great-grandparents. And isn’t that where we all start, no matter when we started? We stuck a plant or seed in the ground; it grew, and we thought to ourselves, “Gosh, even I can do this.”

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It’s great fun to compose wishlists of seeds to try and plants to grow, but, you know, you have to put those plants somewhere. Figuring out where to put them is called the design process. I’ve come across two books lately that help.

The Perennial Gardener’s Design Primer by Stephanie Cohen and Nancy J. Ondra provides in one volume the kind of information it took me several years of reading gardening magazines to acquire. If, like me, you’re a magazine addict of long-standing, you probably won’t learn much, though you’ll be reminded of an awful lot you might have been on the verge of forgetting.

The biggest problem with most introductory books is they are superficial and boring. Cohen and Ondra manage to avoid both.

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Oh, dear–I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job reviewing this book, because people are getting the wrong impression. I was in the midst of writing a very long comment to rectify the situation, and decided it would make a better post instead.

Popularity: 15% [?]