The Gardeners Calendar: A Wee Booklet

At the same time, I learned a lot about the frequent spraying and other chemical rites of rose growing, as this was the expectation in almost every rose books of the time. Rountree is emphatic in her most important advice. The most important key to successful rose growing is choosing the right rose for the right place. Many books and articles about roses give generic advice for growing roses in a wide range of climates.

They are of little specific help for growing roses in the Pacific Northwest. Karen Chapman and Christina Salwitz are crusaders for garden foliage. The authors have created a long list of vignettes of plant combinations. Some are simple, two or three plants, while others are very complex and may include ornaments. The setting can be in a large garden bed, or a simple pot.

Flowers are allowed, but they must compliment the foliage and be chosen for embellishment. They are not the stars of the show. The plans all have crazy names. Why these designs work is carefully explained, along with general culture tips. Best is how the design will change with time. Attention is also drawn to potential problems, such as the invasiveness of the above-mentioned feather grass. I find field guides fascinating and always enjoy reading new ones. There are enough photos and text descriptions to help you recognize the most common plants, animals, bugs, and even the rocks of our mountains.

While field guides with detailed keys or multiple photographs for each species might be better for fine-tuning your plant identification, this is handy if your specimen is occupied by some winged creature — just flip to another part of the book to identify it, too. Interspersed are anecdotes and observations of the more noteworthy genera that make this a delightful book to read from cover to cover. However, it is new to me and I found it quite interesting.

Unlike some other all-in-one field guides, plants are not short-changed and — if you include mosses, fungi, and lichens — comprise half of the book. The essays on the trees, shrubs, and wildflowers are delightful. For example, the glacier Erythronium grandiflorum and avalanche E. How would it be to spend a whole year observing a forest, the changing seasons and all the beings — plants and animals — that lived there.

Book Reviews

She lived on the edge of the Harvard Forest, a 3, acre managed research forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, over 60 miles west of the main Harvard campus. To focus her attention, she concentrates on one tree, a northern red oak Quercus rubra , of early middle age for this species. She examines this tree in every conceivable way, and with the help of experts from many professional and avocational perspectives. She also considers the humans that interact with the tree and the forest, including the cultural history of the area, and its impact on the natural history.

Throughout there is an ongoing consideration of climate and other changes in the forest. Both from the long view over millennia, and the more recent changes, such as the increase of the hemlock woolly adelgid Adelges tsugae , and near demise of such forest stalwarts as the American elm Ulmus americana and the American chestnut Castanea dentata.

Some of this is told from the supposed perspective of her beloved hundred-plus-year-old red oak. Mapes stayed in New England during the winter of , one of the coldest and snowiest on record. However, if your goals are not quite so ambitious, there is still a lot of advice here for creating a cutting patch in your own garden and using the bounty for filling vases and many other purposes.

Primary author Erin Benzakein speaks from a lot of experience. Her farm began as a big patch of sweet peas, grown in memory of her beloved, gardening great-grandmother. Friends requested cut flowers. The tears and emotional memories evoked in one recipient was an epiphany for Benzakein. Witnessing the profound impact that a simple bouquet could have on a person, I knew I had discovered something worth pursuing. And not just flowers.

She encourages growing at least as many plants for their leaves, seed pods, colorful branches, and other features as supporting cast — or stars in their own right — for your arrangements. She also encourages the use of grasses, shrubs, trees, and even vegetables in your cutting plans; a spray of tomatoes — in various stages of ripeness — has considerable ornamental value. To this end, there is an introduction to all the equipment familiar to a florist. Many of these are useful to the home arranger for various projects involving both fresh and dried flowers.

The most striking photo and there are many in the book is of the author wearing a spring crown of ranunculus, viburnum, muscari, and campanula! The popularity of birding in our region sparked the release of two new birding books with nearly identical titles by major regional publishers. If you are serious about identifying the birds in your garden or on your local travels, you clearly need both books!

The photography is one of the outstanding features of both, and the photos capture a very wide range of species, often with multiple images to show variation in sexes, juveniles, breeding plumage, and other color forms. Throughout there is help with identification between near look-alikes, and the authors address behaviors, bird songs, specifics on where to find rarer birds, and conservation status. The Timber Press book includes helpful and practical introductions to most species.

Drew Lanham Lanham, Reviewed by: This began in childhood. Although this path would have likely led to a more profitable career, Lanham realized his heart had a different goal, and is now a Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University. This was not an easy choice, and Lanham laments that very few other men of color have pursued the same career path. It also is sometimes a dangerous choice; black men found with binoculars in a rural setting may risk their lives. His advice is simple: Brian Thomson on Thomas Liptan introduces his new book, Sustainable Stormwater Management , by recounting an aha!

This book is an easy-to-read summation of the lessons the author has learned over his career, and is recommended for anyone considering stormwater management projects, large or small. He is both upbeat in encouraging innovation and pragmatic in the need to have results that are functional, economically sound, long-lasting, and look good.

Most engaging are the many case studies and the practicalities of choosing plants and structural materials. Liptan has worked in Portland for many years and uses this city for many of his examples. Given our similar climate, rainfall, and interest in sustainable development, this is an excellent book for projects in the Seattle area, too.

Confused by plant families? Having trouble keeping track of recent changes based on DNA and other molecular research? RHS Genealogy for Gardeners can help with these questions. This is an excellent book for field botanists, or anyone interested in understanding the relationships between plants in any setting. The book is published in the United States under the title Plant Families: A Guide for Gardeners and Botanists. Bayton has his PhD in taxonomy, while Maughan has an extensive background in writing, editing, and publishing both botanical and horticultural works. The combination means this book has scientific accuracy and is very readable for those with all levels of botanical knowledge.

Family descriptions include basic characteristics, the genetic history, best-known genera, and the important uses of the members, including as ornamentals and for food crops or other plant-based products. The best we currently have to rely on are our own observational skills. Link to this review permalink The Living Jigsaw: I read a lot of gardening books — one of the joys of my profession! Somehow, the British author Val Bourne had escaped my attention until now, but I will watch eagerly for her future writings.

Her new book, The Living Jigsaw , is a delight. I had a hard time putting it down. Reading this book is like looking at your garden with a close-up lens. As suggested by the title, Bourne is very interested in the inner workings of and the interplay between plants, insects, and other animals, especially as they influence the health and robustness of her garden. Her pesticide free garden — she is opposed to even so-called 'natural insecticides' — thrives with careful planning and management.

Many of her gardening principles were tested when she moved from an established garden that was dry and stony, to a new, unmanaged garden with fertile soil and underground springs. She had to make new choices of plants and plant combinations — some old favorites didn't succeed in the new conditions. Of course, the animals in her garden are UK natives. Try as I might, nothing I do in my garden will encourage hedgehogs. However, Bourne's garden practices are very applicable to the Pacific Northwest, and her annotated listing of "Top Plants for an Eco-Friendly Garden" has many worthwhile selections for our gardens.

Brown, Reviewed by: Published in , it surveyed the best practices for pruning used on the numerous and wide-ranging woody plants of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew near London. Brown died in Tony Kirkham, the current head of the arboretum, gardens, and horticultural services at Kew, updated his work with a second edition in This new book is most obviously different by its inclusion of the excellent photographs by Andrea Jones. These not only illustrate pruning challenges and techniques for addressing them, they act as a guide to the collections at Kew, showing a wide selection of woody ornamentals suitable for any temperate garden or arboretum.

While trees predominate, there is a good selection of shrubs and vines, too. Each entry describes the growth habit and the reasons for pruning, which is some cases is "little pruning needed. Link to this review permalink Botanical Shakespeare: Jessica Anderson on If you are attending outdoor Shakespeare plays this summer and enjoy plants, this book is for you!

For example, cockle, a flowering weed found in wheat fields, is metaphorically used to describe corruption. The foreword is by Helen Mirren, who has taken on many Shakespeare roles, including switching up the male character Prospero in The Tempest. Mirren notes her love of gardening began during her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. This book is pure pleasure: Syllabic Sketches at the back of the book. I learned that beans seem to suffer from a low reputation in Shakespeare, and are often used as horse feed or food only fit for the poor. On our wish list, this dictionary is not currently available in local libraries.

Dennis Saxman on I recently read and returned a new book to the Elisabeth C. A New Garden Ethic: As I told Laura Blumhagen, this is one of the most important books I have ever read. In just pages, it contains a rich world that eloquently presents the complexity of our gardening landscapes and practices.

Reading the book feels as if you are speaking with its author, and as if he were a lifelong friend. Part history, part memoir, part genealogy, this book conveys a deep sense of its author and of place. It is so absorbing that I bought a copy for my own collection, anticipating sharing and re-reading it. The author begins with the exposition of a new garden ethic: And, of course, they do, as we are coming to realize rather late in the age of global warming. Our gardens matter, and how we tend them matters.

Vogt points out that the new garden ethic goes beyond just planting natives to include the preservation of spaces for birds and insects. His third chapter explains why we believe what we believe about gardening and landscape. The fourth chapter includes a brief but informative overview of historic landscape design and public gardens and parks, offering examples of places that he considers exemplars of a new garden ethic. The book ends with the challenge and plea to learn new languages, for example, from insects and birds, and to change our gardening practices to move beyond beauty to the support of an entire world, inhabited by many other species.

An Identification Guide discuss the rising global demand for these medicinal plants and their drugs and the need for their proper identification and descriptions in English. I first read this book with some skepticism. Is it just a well-produced guide to medicines based on folklore? Several facts changed my opinion. The authors are at two prestigious organizations that worked together for fifteen years on this project. This collaboration and the depth of scholarship convinced me of the academic merit of this work.

This is not a small field guide. Large in physical dimensions and over pages, it is a major reference work describing both the living plants and the harvested and prepared parts used in medicine. The cross-referencing, especially between Chinese and Western traditions, is extensive.

I recommend it to anyone working with or interested in traditional Chinese medicine. Link to this review permalink An Orchard Odyssey: These experts help clients to solve garden challenges successfully with experience, education, and knowledge of horticulture. Orchards create special dimensions to a sense of place. Growing fruit trees and nut trees is both art and science, and heightens our contact with and appreciation of the interrelated ways of nature. The book highlights the benefits for people and the environment, as well as the local economy and community.

It is inspiring to both plant and food enthusiasts. I was fortunate to grow up on an old orchard homestead in upstate New York, and I have vivid memories of picking Northern Spy apples and packing them into rugged burlap bags in the chilly late fall weather. Climbing the trees to reach the highest branches was an exercise in possibility, capability, vulnerability, and achievement. Warm apple pies and hot mulled cider comforted us all winter long — the ultimate reward. So the odyssey is familiar.

Naomi Slade divides An Orchard Odyssey into two parts. The first part is called The Orchard in the Landscape. Chapter one covers orchard history, From Wilderness to Cultivation. Chapter two, An Orchard Tapestry, describes traditional and chance approaches to design. The Conservation and Biodiversity chapter details an ecological community. The Orchards in the Community chapter is made up of growing, sharing, and foraging, discussing the environment, the local economy, and fruit heritage in the neighborhood.

The second part is called An Orchard of Your Own. It includes the following chapters: Creative Orchard Design; Fruit Trees for Every Space; Tree Planting and Care; and Enjoying the Harvest, with a recipe for Rumtopf , a traditional German delight consisting of fruit preserved with rum and sugar to serve during the winter holidays. There are many ways to gain hands-on experience with orchards. The Western Cascade Fruit Society and affiliated chapters throughout Western Washington have as their objective "to bring together new and experienced fruit growers who will promote the science, cultivation and pleasure of growing fruit-bearing trees, vines, and plants in the home landscape.

Another example is Piper's Orchard within Carkeek Park, which was restored in as a community project. Washington State University offers diagnostic resources for fruit tree pests and diseases through their Hortsense website and Master Gardener outreach in every county. The Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation offers a list of recommended varieties for the region. Washington State is, of course, a leader in orchard production. By planning, planting, and preserving orchards, a community invests in the future to counter environmental threats.

What could be a better way to spend time? I always look forward to new books intended for Pacific Northwest gardeners. Campion did most of the excellent photography. Keeping this in mind, I returned to the introductory chapters on climate, soils, and garden culture with a better understanding.

As expected, Seattle is part of the Puget Sound sub-region, but Portland and its immediate suburbs have a sub-region of their very own, totally surrounded by the Willamette Valley sub-region. While I was at first surprised by this, after reading the distinguishing factors, I decided these divisions make a lot of sense, and will help gardeners make better plant selections.

The plant encyclopedia is especially good for woody plants. While most species are represented by a single cultivar, these are excellent selections. It is no secret that Barbara Blossom Ashmun is an avid gardener. Besides having a floriferous name, there are the intimate titles of her memoirs: This Portland garden designer and writer did not grow up as a gardener, but instead found her calling well into adulthood.

A divorce and the desire to leave the world of a social worker helped this process. This may be why she writes with the conviction of a convert. And never allow partners, spouses, friends, or curmudgeons discourage you from experimenting with new plants. Give them a Mona Lisa smile and change the subject.

Ed Back (Author of From The Back Acres, A Humorous Guide to Organic Gardening)

The author has a knack for writing for both the experienced and novice gardener. She understands plant lust very well, but she also found an antidote to that in the Kleingarten movement in Germany. Over the short period of time it took to cut down the failing tree, her yard went from shady to sunny. It was a shock. However, this gardener, now in her seventies, had the necessary resilience to create a new patio in the space the sweet gum had occupied, with more space for — yes!

Link to this review permalink Peonies: Adelman, Reviewed by: Carol Adelman and her husband own a peony nursery in Salem, Oregon. The Best Varieties for Your Garden. While it is easy to thumb quickly through these images, you will miss a lot of information in the notes, including comments on the foliage quality or awards that designate the selection as good for landscapes.

This latter point is important, as in their introduction, the authors ask some important questions of the reader. What is the purpose of your peonies? Do you want a big but short burst of bloom, perhaps to coincide with a special event? Or do you hope to stretch the bloom period out as long as possible, realizing that at best, this will be just over a month? Answering these questions will help you decide the role of peonies in your overall landscape. They are green through the summer and into the fall, often with attractive foliage. What companions will you match with them?

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I appreciated that the authors also discuss the early spring, emerging foliage, which can be quite stunning. The structure of each is similar to the original with chapters to identify the symptoms and causes of the problems, and separate chapters laying out organic solutions or preferred cultural practices. Deardorff and Wadsworth celebrate the work that has been done: We are grateful for the many marijuana breeders and growers who have labored for years in the shadows. The butterfly or the weed? Even better, this is not fiction! I read the pages of his book as quickly as any whodunit.

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The characters include the baby caterpillar monarchs, trying to survive their first encounter with their only source of food, the leaves of milkweed. The milkweed plant has many ways to protect itself including its own gooey latex-like sap, or by coaxing monarch predators to do the job. There is good reason for this — the plant gains nothing from its interaction as the adult butterflies are not helpful pollinators.

In contrast, the larval and adult butterflies gain a toxicity that protects them from significant predation by birds. But this toxicity is not effective against other insects or various parasites. The plant seems to know this. The battle of coevolution moves on. Agrawal is a scientist who interweaves his personal life and research.

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He discovered the caterpillar of an unknown species, brought it into his living room, watched it pupate, and then emerge from its chrysalis as a butterfly. This was a serendipitous lesson in mimicry as it was a viceroy butterfly, with similar coloration to a monarch and thereby gaining some of its protection, even though it lacks toxicity for birds. Helphand, Reviewed by: The Masters of Modern Landscape Design is a series of biographies featuring landscape architects prominent in the mid to late 20th century in North America.

Lawrence Halprin was a west coast landscape architect who lived productively into his 90s. Freeway Park was the first capping of an interstate freeway, a model replicated widely since that time. This biography recounts the initial praise for the project opened in , the expansion by Halprin associate Angela Danadjieva, the subsequent decline of the park into disuse, and revitalizing revisions to the plantings of the last decade. Before his death, Halprin contributed to this last effort, which leaves the structure of the park in place.

Massive waterfalls are a Halprin signature. He designed these in the s and linked them by an eight-block pedestrian mall. He demonstrated this at the dedication of the Forecourt Fountain in Vietnam War protests at nearby Portland State University created tension between the students and police gathered for the event. Welch, Reviewed by: Nominated for an AHS award, the authors Greg Grant and William Welch take turns sharing their stories, their favorite plants mostly roses , and their favorite people.

Their heroes are a dedicated group promoting old roses, many of the plants surviving with no care in cemeteries or abandoned home sites throughout Texas. While this is a very different climate from ours, every gardener will appreciate the tenacity of plants that are good-doers and the humans that cherish them.

One quirk of this book is the nomenclature. Rose variety names in single quotation marks are cultivars, the same as with most plants. Other varieties have double quotation marks, meaning these are study names. These substitute for real names that have been lost in time. There is a lot of good horticultural advice and garden design in this book, but best are the stories.

It also survived being under salt water for two weeks after Hurricane Katrina. A suckering rose in Scottsville, Texas has possibly survived since The magenta flowers are sometimes flushed with blue edges. These roses are resilient. Humans did that to them. In addition to being beautiful in a simplistic way, roses were initially wiry and mean as snakes. This made them perfect Texans, of course.

Fraser and Sally Armstrong Leone eds. Who is the author? Their collective publications span the first half of the 19th century, produced in both France and the United States, and first in French and later in English. The full bibliographic story is in the preface of this new book. Mertz Library has perhaps the most complete collection of the at least 16 different editions by Michaux and Nuttall.

Mertz Library staff have produced this new book, using faithful reproductions of the plates. The horticulture staff for NYBG add notes with current updates of nomenclature, ranges, and horticultural uses. This is mostly a picture book, but what a glorious one it is. We are fortunate to have an original in the Miller Library rare book collection. While a reprint can never quite match a hand-colored original, this comes very close.

These accurate images made the original the standard reference book for North America trees until the early 20th century. A concluding essay by David Allen Sibley explains the process of making the reprinted images — a process as complex as the authorship. Ondra, Reviewed by: But what plants will you select? Salad greens and herbs are naturals for this treatment; more unusual are plants grown for their berries or for making tea. Other selections are designed to attract: Best of all, this is only the newest book in our excellent collection on containers that will help you plant a garden no matter how limited your space or time!

Laura Blumhagen on Reading David Sobel's latest book feels like attending a national conference on outdoor early childhood education. Each chapter draws on the expertise and experience of key decision-makers working with young children in nature programs all over the country.

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Sobel first distinguishes forest kindergartens from nature preschools, explaining how they differ in genesis, mission, philosophy, curriculum, and focus, and how both types of programs in North America differ from the European Waldkindergarten schools which arose in the late s in Germany and have influenced similar programs in Scotland and other European countries. A central theme is the developmental case for a style of outdoor education where instructors act as mentors and guides as children experiment, choose activities and learn to work together, not only solving their own problems but deciding for themselves what questions they will ask and what games and projects to invent on the spot.

These experiences, he argues, lead young children to develop initiative, perseverance and creativity as well as a richer vocabulary, a love of nature, and social skills that will serve them and their communities well in later life. Sobel's reasoning is persuasive and the examples he gives are diverse and fascinating. The chapter entitled "The Dollars and Sense of Business Planning and Budgeting," contributed by Ken Finch, covers factors to consider when starting or expanding such a school. Whether a school is a non-profit organization or a for-profit business, it will be essential for founders to understand how to budget, how to attract staff, donors, families, and investors, and what rules and regulations affect such schools.

Sobel and his coauthors use stories, photos, and dialogue gathered from fledgling and more established nature preschools and forest kindergartens around the United States to highlight best practices in curriculum, focus, staffing, administration and funding. The book closes with a chapter by Erin K. Kenny details the events of a fall day there to illustrate some of the ways the school supports scientific inquiry, language learning, and emotional development for the children who attend.

This book will intrigue anyone with an interest in outdoor education for young children. Link to this review permalink Vitamin N: New on our shelves this month you'll find Richard Louv's new book, Vitamin N: Joining his earlier work, Last child in the woods: While the book will be useful for parents of small children, it also covers what individual teens and adults can do to have a nature-rich life as well as how teachers and grandparents can support outdoor play and learning for the children in their lives.

Planting Design for Dry Gardens is an excellent book but unfortunately is poorly titled. I found the effort worthwhile, as it exposed me as a gardener to ideas not typically found in a Pacific Northwest oriented garden book. For example, Filippi does not recommend using a drip irrigation system for a dry garden of groundcover plants.

Instead he advocates hand watering, using temporary basins created around the new plantings, so that plants will more likely to survive without supplemental watering once established. Many other general gardening topics, from planting to attract beneficial insects to concerns about invasive plants, are addressed from a refreshingly distinctive, continental European perspective.

Link to this review permalink Growing a Life: The author transcribes her face-to-face interviews with 90 youth gardeners participating in twelve different programs across the country. Her goal is to discover how growing food at their school, community center, or non-profit organization affects these teens' health as well as the attitudes, job prospects, and hopes for the future they share. The result is inspirational! Do you read poems with the children in your life? Get ready for any weather as you enjoy the lyrical quality of these illustrated seasonal poems with outdoor themes, from harvesting tomatoes to admiring winter trees.

Set against a backdrop of expansive illustrations by Julie Morstad, these spare poems evoke universal moments of wonder from childhood. Rebecca Alexander on In my work as a horticulture reference librarian, I am often presented with a scrap of leaf or flower or twig, and asked to identify it. Although I have a pretty good visual memory for plants and their names, I have no formal training in botany. A Botanist's Vocabulary by Susan Pell and Bobbi Angell Timber Press, is a useful tool not just for botanists but for all who work with plants—home gardeners and professionals alike. The book is arranged in straight alphabetical dictionary order, which makes it easy to look up a term you may have come across in the course of learning about a plant.

It complements a book like The Cambridge Illustrated Glossary of Botanical Terms Michael Hickey and Clive King, , which is organized by the parts of a plant—the roots, seeds, flowers, leaves, fruits, and so forth. The pen and ink illustrations by Bobbi Angell are very clear, and red arrows or markings indicate the part of the plant referred to by a term, when such clarification is needed.

The definitions are also concise, and include synonyms or in some cases antonyms, as relevant. I found familiar as well as unfamiliar terms, and as a word-nerd this is the kind of reference book that is a great joy to browse. The only desired feature the book lacks is consistent identification of the plant or plant family shown in each illustration. Some are named, but many are not.

It would be helpful, once one has looked up the word, to have at least one example of which genus or family exhibits the characteristic being described and defined. Gardening advice is mostly on crop rotation and timing, most profitable selections, and the preparation of the harvest for sale — all key points in running a business. Chapters cover market streams, labor, self-promotion, and finance options. Stone lives in Kelowna, British Columbia, a city of ,, but he is familiar with the needs and challenges of farming in both larger, denser cities and on what he calls peri-urban land: He gives the pros and cons of having all your crops at one site often not possible in an urban setting , or the more likely model of having multiple plots.

How do you find these plots? He has several suggestions and provides a point checklist to consider for each potential site. Before you begin reviewing the list, he does bend a bit from his typical, matter-of-fact tone by reminding the reader that you as a farmer are valuable. You are the one in demand, because you are scarce.

Twice in the early aughts, I participated in garden tours to the greater San Francisco area, once in April and once in September. I was delighted to learn recently of a new book capturing and celebrating this garden, and to learn that Ms. Bancroft, whom our group met briefly at age 94, is still with us at ! In her childhood she was introduced to bearded iris by neighbors who were experts on these plants. When she had her own house, she developed a huge selection of historical cultivars that were just finishing their bloom during my spring visit. These are carefully maintained on a schedule of digging up one-third of the collection every year to divide and replant.

The health of the collection reflected this high level of care. As an adult, Bancroft became fascinated with succulent plants. Initially this was a collection of small, potted plants maintained near her home. Despite losing much of her collection to a freak freeze shortly after planting the garden out, she never looked back. The results are sublime and I would highly recommend a visit to this garden anytime you are in the area. If these plants are not your interest, then read this book for the story of Ruth Bancroft.

At age 63 she started her succulent garden, an untested concept in her climate at the time. She began with plants in gallon-size pots or smaller. At 83 she opened the now-maturing succulent garden to the public, and she continued working in it daily well into her nineties. This reflected their efforts as the founders of The Seattle Urban Farm Company to encourage people to grow food, no matter what their limitations of space or experience.

Their ideas would work throughout most of North America, although here and there it reminds you of its Seattle roots, to the benefit of local readers. They have selected three real examples with pseudonyms for the owners of gardens of varying sizes, one each in an urban, a suburban, and a rural setting, and use these as examples throughout — an effective approach. Most of the bee books in the Miller Library collection are either guides to keeping honey bees, or field guides to native bees.

A new book by Pacific Northwest authors has a different focus — living with bees as an active, vibrant part of your garden. While this may include European honey bees, the focus is on less well-known native bees. Most of these are solitary bees that do not form hives or make honey, but they are outstanding pollinators. To these authors, the bees are almost pets. While the care requirements are minimal compared to many other garden tasks, they still are important, and can be a fun and useful way to share bee knowledge with friends and neighbors.

However, leafcutter bees are best a bit warmer, such as in an unheated garage. Why go to all this trouble? There is a chapter on recommended bee-friendly plants, both woody and herbaceous, always with an emphasis on natives. There are lists of plants to avoid, including those with double flowers as single, pollen rich flowers have more to offer to pollinators.

Providing sufficient nesting options is critical. They recommend leaving some bare patches of ground, free of layers of mulch that are troublesome for bees to dig through. Of course, like all wildlife, your bees need to have a pesticide-free environment. Author Michael Ableman is the co-founder of Sole Food Street Farms, a charitable organization that includes four farms on abandoned lots in downtown Vancouver, B.

This book is the story of that organization and the people it has hired to become the urban farmers. The neighborhoods around these farms are not tourist attractions. There are losses on these farms, both of the produce and of the humans who tend the crops, but overall this is a book of hope. Ableman is very clear that this endeavor is not a panacea for the challenges of poverty, mental health diseases, or addictions.

Besides the human stories, all gardeners will relate to the challenges of growing plants in less than ideal circumstances, including outsmarting pests, in this case a sophisticated rat population that only chooses the best vegetables. Andrews Experimental Forest east of Eugene was established in At nearly 16, acres, it covers the entire Lookout Creek watershed on the west side of the Cascades. The Forest is used to study ecosystems, wildlife, logging practices, and many other natural and human processes in both old-growth and managed forests.

The founders of this program are ambitious; they expect it to continue for years. This is a collection of poems, essays, and even field notes. The black and white photography of Bob Keefer offers further context. This is a book to savor slowly, with lessons that are applicable to all coastal forests. Link to this review permalink Environmental Horticulture: This book covers many topics, beginning with the value of green spaces for human well-being and biodiversity. Many types of plantings are considered, ranging from trees and shrubs to bedding plants, and including formal settings and semi-natural grasslands.

Even plantings as diverse as lawns or sports turf and green roofs or rain gardens are studied with the same depth of research as other types. The authors are on the faculty of the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield in England. Although some of the terminology is distinctly British, much of the discussion is based on North American research.

One of the most valuable assets of this book are the references, which include many American sources. The Miller Seed Vault, located in the Douglas Research Conservatory, is the largest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest and preserves more than rare plant species from Washington. By comparison, the Svalbard Vault has over 4, species of food or agriculture crops from around the world. For most species, the vault also protects many, many selected varieties.

This book tells the short history it opened in of the Svalbard Vault, its operations, and its location in the far north of Norway with many stark and beautiful photographs. It also tells the chilling story of its first withdrawal by an agricultural research institution in Syria, that fortunately sent seeds to Svalbard just before hostilities erupted in that country. Fortunately, those withdrawn seeds are now being grown outside of Syria to replenish the original stock.

This is an excellent addition to the library and is quite different from our several other titles on the genus Galanthus. It is part of the Reaktion Books Botanical series of books we have many in the series which are uniform in their ability to bring a fresh prospective to many garden subjects already well recounted by others. These other authors provide extensive descriptions of the hundreds of snowdrop varieties that eager galanthophiles will snap up, while this book is more interested in the passion that drives such collectors.

It is also a wonderful history of the role these early spring flowers have played in culture, including art, literature, and music. Yes, that was Snowdrop, who later became the White Queen. It was only after the Walt Disney animation of the same story that we came to know the heroine as Snow White. For these stories and many others, this is a delightful book to read especially during these late, cold days of winter.

Moreover, if you hurry, you can check out Snowdrop while its eponymous flower is still in bloom in your garden! In the opening chapter of Urban Tree Management, editor Andreas Roloff introduces the common problems associated with trees growing in the public spaces of cities. He quickly dismisses these by concluding: The occasional inconvenience caused by trees should therefore be tolerated. This no-nonsense approach is typical of this collection of essays by numerous German experts that Roloff, the chair of Forest Botany at Dresden University of Technology, has collected.

Of course — the authors would agree — trees are essential to cities! While this attitude may represent an especially German viewpoint, I believe it will resonate with local arborists and others who care for the trees in city landscapes. In later chapters, the problems the editor initially presents, and many more, are addressed pragmatically and in considerable detail.

The result is an excellent reference book. All aspects of tree health, maintenance, and selection are considered. Potential issues with governing bodies and conflicts with human activities are discussed. The educational, social, and public health benefits of urban trees are championed. This book is somewhat rare in this country, so is for library use only. However, each chapter includes an extensive list of references, most in English, and many that are readily available in print or online. For another positive review and perspective on the value of this book, see the article by Julian Dunster in the Summer issue of Pacific Northwest Trees.

It's available in the library, or online via the Pacific Northwest International Society of Arboriculture website. Fiona Bird is a true champion of appreciating the wild outside world. Her work inspires deeply breathing fresh air, opening up the mind, and enjoying the excitement and mystery of the world we live in, starting early in life. This Scottish author writes with strong feeling as a mother of six: The introduction of the book emphasizes the value of a mentor and highlights the importance of the environment.

Each chapter describes and explains the particular environment and the wild plants and animal treasures that can be discovered there. Activity suggestions are rich exercises that are realistic, local, and impress all the senses of young citizen naturalists — blossoming conservationists. Link to this review permalink The Lord Treasurer of Botany: Priscilla Grundy on James Smith was a lion of the study of botany in 18th century England, when botanizing became a popular activity for both women and men, and the study first entered English university curricula.

This biography aims to bring Smith's accomplishments to twenty-first century attention. Son of a Norwich woolen draper, Smith was smitten with botany at an early age. His astounding accomplishment was to purchase all the botanical specimen collections and manuscripts of Carl Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist, when Smith was only Then he parlayed this coup into a career in botany which involved a vast output of books and papers, plus hundreds of public and university lectures.

And he helped found the Linnaean Society in London, which to this day houses those collections. Read from cover to cover, The Lord Treasurer of Botany offers a winsome experience that includes social striving, amazing luck, decades of incredibly hard work, and introductions to multiple English and Continental botanists, most notably Sir Joseph Banks, an early mentor of Smith's.

The Miller Library copy is a reference edition, which means it must be read in the library, so reading cover to cover would require remarkable persistence. Here are some suggestions for shorter activities: If you have 15 minutes, do look at the photographs. This is a beautifully produced book, and the colored prints of plants, though few, are wonderful, as are the portraits and architectural drawings.

If you are a student of early Flora, start with the index and turn to the numerous discussions of books on mostly British plants. The book includes many by other authors, as well as Smith's. If you want a sample of the biographical narrative, the opening chapter, "Roots — The Early Life of James Edward Smith," and the second, "London — the Sale of the Century," on buying Linnaeus's collections, are good starts.

None of these shorter stays will give you the ups and downs, the trials of health, the strained generosity of a father who wanted James to earn his own living which he eventually did , and the long friendships with fellow botanists that the book has to offer. Perhaps they will encourage you to keep coming back for it all. Link to this review permalink Rhapsody in Green: If you have ever sighed wistfully while leafing through garden design books lush with illustrations of meadowy expanses, sweeping perennial borders against a backdrop of graceful tall trees, gently trickling water features, charming gazebos, and kitchen gardens large enough to feed a ravenous extended family, then British novelist Charlotte Mendelson's Rhapsody in Green will provide a welcome relief.

She is wickedly self-deprecating referring to herself at one point as Incapability Mendelson , and many urban gardeners will identify with her grand ambitions for a very limited space. Her writing is full of sharp wit, and brims over with fierce enthusiasm for unusual varieties of edible plants in particular. Is it foolhardy to keep trying—and failing--to grow heirloom apple trees, or is it laudable indomitability?

Gardening projects fall by the wayside germinating seeds abandoned, fruit leather made from foraged quinces growing a fur of mold but Mendelson's devotion to the garden finds her wandering away from her dinner guests to go putter among the leaves in the dark. Despite the vicarious exhaustion of accompanying Mendelson on her journey of gardening trial and error, what makes this a compelling book to read is the quality of the writing, and the incisive attention to detail. She may struggle to eke a single zucchini or patch of mint out of her small plot, but Mendelson is keenly attuned to the natural world and to the unalloyed happiness that we find in growing things—even if we sometimes kill them.

The book is arranged by season subheadings include: You may find yourself chortling one moment and stunned silent by her closely observed and beautiful description of the natural world the next. Some books have bibliographies, but this one has "The Blacklist: She recommends The Organic Salad Garden as the most important title for the aspiring edible gardener.

Anyone who regularly dresses up as a queen bee to educate children has to be passionate about her topic. Lori Weidenhammer, a performance artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is certainly that. All this energy at first may distract you from the rich content. This is an excellent introduction and field guide to the many types of bees. Planting charts recommend plants for your gardens — starting with weeds!

Each entry tells you which bees are attracted to the plant, and what it provides for them.

Planting plans will suggest garden layouts. The photos, mostly by the author, are excellent at showing their small subjects in tremendous detail. Suppose you are accidently stung by a bee. Bad stings happen to good people. The word pulse has many meanings! This is a book better defined by its sub-title: To be more precise, a pulse is a legume harvested mainly for the dry seed. The primary author, Dan Jason of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, has chosen to concentrate on the five that are the easiest to grow in the temperate climates of Canada and the northern United States.

Of course, he also sells them through his company, Salt Spring Seeds. But never mind this possible conflict; this is an excellent introduction to these easy-to-grow, highly nutritious, and earth-friendly foods that require little water and no fertilizer. The last part of the book is devoted to 50 vegetarian recipes using pulses and contributed by the co-authors, sisters Hilary Malone and Alison Malone Eathorne of Nanaimo, British Columbia.

These tasty sounding treats take you well beyond traditional soups and stews to everything from breakfast to desserts. To set the stage, the author reviews the natural history of hops, including Humulus lupulus, a wide spread species throughout much of the north temperate world, but that is not found in our region. This all changed in the midth century with the rise of the hops growing in both Oregon and Washington. Puyallup, Washington was an early center for this crop. In the 20th century, prohibition threatened to destroy this industry. However, the opposite happened, because of the rising demand for the American crop in war-torn Europe.

By the s, hop growing was at its peak in the Willamette Valley, celebrated by the Hop Fiesta in Independence, Oregon, an event revived in this century. There were challenges, too. The extreme physical demands of harvesting hops led to strife between labor and management. Downy mildew required the breeding of resistant varieties, a process that did not have significant success until the s.

Today, the center of hops growing has shifted back to Washington, as the greater Yakima Valley now is by far the largest producer of hops in the world. Link to this review permalink Birds of the Pacific Northwest: The Audubon book includes an excellent essay on the climate, geology, and ecology of different sub-regions, especially as it pertains to the birds found there. It covers a bigger area, extending the region eastward to the continental divide. I like that each photograph includes both the location by county and the month taken. Link to this review permalink Orchid: From its first appearance in an ancient Greek herbal, the orchid has been associated with sex, and Jim Endersby makes clear that association continues to the present.

Orchids have been associated with subjects as wide-ranging as death in one fictional account a blossom consumes a human , masculinity, female temptation, and homosexuality. The adventures of real life orchid hunters make fascinating reading, but much fiction grew out of it as well. This is serious history with a light touch. Link to this review permalink Garden Revolution: The title Garden Revolution is hype. This new book by Larry Weaner and Thomas Christopher is instead a retreat, a going back to working with nature.

Yes, it does challenge many traditional horticultural practices. Primary author and long-time garden designer Weaner uses the term ecological gardening to describe his technique. He insists on working with the existing soil, exposure, and other elements of a site, choosing plants that thrive in the given conditions, instead of amending to the needs of plants you want. He also argues against most accepted weeding practices because they disturb the soil, encouraging more weed seeds to sprout.

Most of all, he wants the gardener and anyone who carefully observes a landscape to recognize that change is inevitable, but it can and should be embraced. Why am I recommending this book to students and researchers in restoration? Because there is a lot of good horticulture that is very applicable to restoration sites. Weaner lives in the eastern United States, but his principles are quite adaptable and applicable. To be successful, this sort of design requires letting the landscape make many of the decisions.

Time in the woods refreshes your spirit and opens your mind. It cultivates appreciation, discovery, and possibilities. In a woodland setting, Play the Forest School Way: Yet most writing about this fascinating subject is overly technical - an alphabet soup of L-plans, Z-plans and bartizans Travelling county by county The book takes you through simple ceilidh moves The midge does not like sunlight and thrives in the wet, so the Scottish summertime brings perfect climatic conditions for this ruthless wee beastie.

Alasdair Roberts has compiled Pocket Guide to Scottish Place Names. Pocket Guide To Scottish Words. A concise pocket guide to Scots-English and Gaelic-English words, with sections on Scottish place names, personal names and food and drink. This book is a user's guide to ancestor-hunting, picking out the best websites, archives and libraries to start from and generally demystifying the trail.

As the proud possessors of a fiercely independent creative heritage, the Scots were a race apart even before Hadrian built the wall. Scotland has produced an indomitable bunch This is a concise, and up-to-date survey that provides for the visitor or resident an overview of Scotland's finest buildings and its long line of architectural geniuses. From Abram to Yvonne - all the Christian names of Scotland are here, plus a lot more. Masterpieces of Art Jan. Fergusson, Leslie Hunter and F. A highly readable and absorbing anthology of traditional Scottish customs and rites of passage, Scottish Customs draws upon a broad range of literary and oral sources.

Scottish Genealogy is the comprehensive guide to tracing your family history in Scotland. Written by one of the most authoritative figures on the subject, the work is based on This is a guide to names used in Scotland - Scots, Gaelic, international, ancient, modern, and timeless - their origins and meanings. This title covers sport, television, industry, music, heroes and villains, feasts, festivals, fun, law and order, politics, literature, football, great Scots and many, many more This work tells you how to tap into the fund of information that is available in Scotland in order to track down your Scottish ancestors.

It describes the wealth of information Scottish Songs is a collection of more than 80 traditional compositions arranged for voice and piano. This charming collection of traditional Scottish songs ranges from those you might hear in a bothy to romantic tunes dedicated to a lover. Featuring musical and chrod notation The Scottish landscape is justly famed for its beauty and diversity, and Scots law provides good opportunities for people to enjoy access to this land.

This book aims to provide This readable and handy booklet on Scottish attire provides a compact guide not only for those starting to wear Scottish dress, but also for those who may have been wearing the Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors. With 5 million people in Scotland, and over 30 million of Scottish descent scattered over the globe, it is not surprising that research into Scottish family history is so popular—especially Ultimate Burns Supper Book, The.