Here are 38 books that The Informed Gardener fans have personally recommended if you like
The Informed Gardener.
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When I was studying plant science in graduate school, I realized that what I really wanted to do was not lab research but to help people understand plants better so they could grow more beautiful and bountiful gardens. To this end, I have written several books, founded the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), taught horticulture at City College of San Francisco for several decades, and, since 2006, written a column on gardening for the SF Chronicle. My list of books about gardening know-how will painlessly prepare you to grow plants well.
Ann
Ralph, formerly in charge of the fruit tree section of Berkeley Horticultural
Nursery, has written a short, easy to use, book on caring for fruit trees. It
should come with every fruit tree sold, since its text and illustrations so
effectively teach the methods of planting, pruning, and ongoing care that will
produce delicious fruit.
Grow your own apples, figs, plums, cherries, pears, apricots, and peaches in even the smallest backyard! Ann Ralph shows you how to cultivate small yet abundant fruit trees using a variety of specialised pruning techniques. With dozens of simple and effective strategies for keeping an ordinary fruit tree from growing too large, you'll keep your gardening duties manageable while at the same time reaping a bountiful harvest. These little fruit trees are easy to maintain and make a lovely addition to any home landscape.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
When I was studying plant science in graduate school, I realized that what I really wanted to do was not lab research but to help people understand plants better so they could grow more beautiful and bountiful gardens. To this end, I have written several books, founded the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), taught horticulture at City College of San Francisco for several decades, and, since 2006, written a column on gardening for the SF Chronicle. My list of books about gardening know-how will painlessly prepare you to grow plants well.
Once
you have looked at the root drawings of common garden edible and ornamental
plants in this book, you will become able to imagine what is going on in the
underground part of plants. This ability will help you water by hand or set up
a drip system. It will also help you to plant successfully, mulch well, and use
the best weeding methods for different plants. The book includes text and
diagrams that teach how to set up a drip irrigation system.
This comprehensive book explains how plants grow based on the scientific evidence. It reveals the complex lives of root systems, debunking outworn gardening myths, providing advice on root- efficient planting and cultivation methods.
When I was studying plant science in graduate school, I realized that what I really wanted to do was not lab research but to help people understand plants better so they could grow more beautiful and bountiful gardens. To this end, I have written several books, founded the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), taught horticulture at City College of San Francisco for several decades, and, since 2006, written a column on gardening for the SF Chronicle. My list of books about gardening know-how will painlessly prepare you to grow plants well.
While you
will learn much about the nature and management of weeds from this book, you
will also find yourself painlessly learning the basics of botany-- the parts of
plants, how they live, how seeds evolved, how ecosystems evolve. While she
keeps weeds at bay, Stein favors a garden, as do I, in which the desirable plants
may self-sow a bit. It is a gardening philosophy that is current and can
produce lovely, serendipitous gardens.
The author of this work tells readers what weeds tell us about our gardens and the lives of all plants. She compares weeding tools and methods, and discusses the uses of weeds.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
When I was studying plant science in graduate school, I realized that what I really wanted to do was not lab research but to help people understand plants better so they could grow more beautiful and bountiful gardens. To this end, I have written several books, founded the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), taught horticulture at City College of San Francisco for several decades, and, since 2006, written a column on gardening for the SF Chronicle. My list of books about gardening know-how will painlessly prepare you to grow plants well.
This
little book, part of a series put out by the Garden, will show you the best
ways to offset climate change in your gardening and landscaping. It includes
tips on materials, energy efficiency, and increasing carbon sequestration. A
chapter by Amanda Knaul and Susan K. Pell covers the climate footprint of
homegrown food.
This technique can save the earth—while resulting in a beautiful garden, too!
Climate Conscious Gardener picks up where Brooklyn Botanic Gardening’s groundbreaking Environmental Gardener left off, giving homeowners, landscapers, and public park managers practical strategies for greening the planet through sustainable and organic gardening. In simple terms, an introductory section explains what happens when the balance of carbon and nitrogen in the atmosphere goes awry, and how plants, soil, and synthetic gardening aids (such as fertilizer and pesticides) affect climate change. Most important, readers will learn how to calculate their garden’s carbon footprint—and what they can do to decrease it…
We’re Chantal Gordon and Ryan Benoit — the cofounders of gardening/design/DIY blog The Horticult. Our site shows you how to create handsome yet effective habitats for your plants. That includes a collection of mounted staghorn ferns under our citrus trees, a vertical garden for your herbs, and a sleek bog for carnivorous pitcher plants. One of our most popular DIYs is how to build an outdoor theater behind your rosemary hedge. We show people how to create outdoor spaces they can deeply enjoy — whether it’s a patio, balcony, or yard. A key to welcoming someone is good design. The more you like hanging out outside, the better care you’ll take of your plants.
Blending Thomsen’s signature humor with her rockin’ expertise, Kiss My Asteris the book you give to your cool friend who just moved into a house with a yard. This raucously illustrated guide gets into the soup-to-nuts of designing a garden — from the different types of soil and drainage essentials to the best vines to plant to why you might need a Japanese maple. (“Or six.”) Learn how to handle pests, and see what Thomsen wears when she’s weeding and deadheading versus when she’s demolishing, digging, and planting. Designwise, the book shows you irreverent ways to play with tall plants, textured foliage, and one-off “specimen plants.” It’s also opinionated — guiding you to a more sustainable gardening life and away from tired lava rocks.
Who cares what the neighbours think? "Kiss My Aster" is a hilarious, irreverent, interactive guide to designing an outdoor space that is exactly what you want. Combining entertaining illustrations with laugh-out-loud text, Amanda Thomsen lays out the many options for home landscaping and invites you to make the choices. Whether you want privacy hedges, elegant flower beds, a patio for partying, a food garden, a kids' play space, a pond full of ducks, or all of the above, you'll end up with a yard you'll adore. Forget about doing it the "right" way: Do it your way!
I’m not an expert gardener, but I’ve been gardening for half my life. Each spring I can’t wait to start all over again. I love deciding what vegetables to plant in our community garden and tucking flowers into the flower boxes. The perfect Saturday? Lingering at my local gardening center and perusing the seedlings at the farmer’s market—the possibilities are endless! As temperatures warm, I begin daily tours of my garden, looking for signs of life, pulling weeds, and tidying up. I marvel as the tulips bloom, scatter zinnia seeds, plant dahlia tubers, water, and wait. Gardening is perfectly predictable, yet I’m captivated by it every year.
I have a small, mostly shady city yard, but I still haven’t given up hope of growing food outside my back door.
That’s where Emily Tepe’s book The Edible Landscapecomes in. With lovely photographs of real gardens and step-by-step instruction, Tepe walks me through how to successfully grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers side-by-side to create a garden that is both beautiful and productive.
The best part of the book is Emily’s 10 favorite lists, featuring plants she loves and recommends.
As the fresh food revolution sweeps the nation, more and more people are seeking out delicious offerings from local growers. We have had our fill of tasteless, woody tomatoes from the far reaches of the globe and have begun tasting again—thanks to farmers’ markets and co-ops—the real flavors we remember from childhood. Inspired by these events, people have started growing food in the most unlikely places, including rooftops, abandoned parking lots, and tiny balconies and backyards on average city streets. Individuals and families are taking up the trowel and discovering that gardening can be fun, fulfilling, and, ultimately, delicious. Far…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Amy Goldman is a gardener, author, artist, philanthropist, and well-known advocate for seed saving, plant breeding, and heirloom fruits and vegetables. Her mission is to celebrate and catalogue the magnificent diversity of standard, open-pollinated varieties, and to promote their conservation. Amy gave up a career as a clinical psychologist to follow her first love which was kitchen gardening. In her own words from Heirloom Harvest: “I have romantic leanings and tend to follow my heart… In hindsight, I know my heart steered me straight, and toward a future I could never have imagined…My passion for the fruits of the earth has deep roots….”
Rosalind Creasy is one of my heroes. It was she who first turned me on to heirloom fruits and vegetables over 30 years ago, when I read her newly published Cooking from the Garden. That seminal tome celebrates the food garden’s bounty and uses in cookery.
Creasy is best known as a pioneer in the field of edible landscaping aka foodscaping: the practice of integrating edible plants into the landscape for beauty and sustenance. Think yummy delicious arbors, allées, groundcovers, borders, hedges, espaliers, foundation plantings, and potted plants. She spells out all the how-to’s, wheres, and whyfors in her first book, The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping; and updates it all in the second edition, Edible Landscaping. If you’re looking for practical advice, detailed instructions, design schemes, and recommended plants to feed body and soul, then allow me to point you in Ros’s direction.
This comprehensive, feature-packed book shows how you can create more beauty around your home, grow delicious healthful produce, and save money and natural resources all at the same time—by landscaping with edible plants. Author Rosalind Creasy, a landscape designer and leading authority on edible landscaping, provides all the information necessary to plan, plant, and maintain ornamental edible landscapes, with specific designs for all geographic and climatic regions of the country. Drawing on years of research into the most decorative and flavorful species—from the exotic water chestnut to the ever-popular apple—Creasy shows how edibles can form the basis for a beautiful…
I wrote Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers. I’m a historian, a master gardener, and I’ve grown a few hundred orchids for over half my life. I love collecting stories of orchids because, well, they’re fascinating, and they offer a deeper connection to the pastime I love best.
Well, thank god this book exists. It fills a huge gap—Joseph Paxton, an English architect, gardener, and engineer, as well as a lover of orchids—was everywhere, doing everything, in the 19th century United Kingdom! He built London’s Crystal Palace (cementing it as the first and possibly most grand World’s Fair in history) as well as directed all activities at Chatsworth (home to one of the world’s largest orchid collections in its time). The book shows us once again that the rich and powerful were not in complete control of the subtropical orchid trade—it took visionaries like Paxton to make them grow successfully in cold locations.I loved getting to know Paxton, his environs, and his relationships with all the well-known horticulturists and botanists of his age.
This is a biography of Joseph Paxton, horticulturist to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, architect of the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and a great unsung hero of the Victorian Age. In the 19th century, which witnessed a revolution in horticulture and urban planning and architecture, Joseph Paxton, a man with no formal education, strode like a colossus. Head gardener at Chatsworth by the age of 23 and encouraged by the sixth Duke of Devonshire, whose patronage soon flourished into the defining friendship of his life, Paxton set about transforming this Derbyshire estate into the greatest…
Living on the edge of a town, brought up by an enthusiastic nature-loving mother and a father involved in outdoor activities, I explored both natural and designed landscapes. When discovering that several of the natural landscapes I perceived were, in fact, (re-)designed by the nineteenth-century landscape gardener Lucas Pieters Roodbaard, my curiosity in cultural landscapes was raised. Soon, I explored a wider context and started collecting literature, ultimately studying landscape architecture, and always with a strong interest in history. The focus on public parks became inevitable when I ended up in landscape consultancy.
This book reminds me of a spell in Boston, in my first job, and I acquired it then as I was eager to take the opportunity to explore its famous park system. This title was recommended to me as the main source of reference. I was immediately attracted to it because it was well-illustrated and with a direct, clear, and accessible text that explained the progress of the project.
To me, it provided a concise context and background for the park system that became prototypical as ‘the emerald necklace,’ not only in the USA but also internationally. I like the way it also addressed the theoretical development, the design process, down to the very detail of the project, in what remains one of the few such critical monographs of a single landscape concept.
Whether flying a kite in Franklin Park, gardening in the Fens, or jogging along the Riverway, today's Bostonians are greatly indebted to the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted. The man who dreamed of an "emerald necklace" of parks for Boston completed his plans in 1895, yet his invigorating influence shapes the city to this day, despite the encroachment of highways and urban sprawl. Cynthia Zaitzevsky's book is the first fully illustrated account of Olmsted's work: the process of "getting the plan" of a park, supervising its construction, adding the necessary "furniture" of bridges and other structures, and selecting plants, shrubs,…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve been fascinated by the park for years, ever since I started visiting it daily to do shinrin-yoku, or Japanese “forest-bathing,” there. I wanted to learn everything about it through first-hand experiences, through guides on its flora and fauna, and through historical sources. The park is the heart of Manhattan, and I wanted to learn what makes it beat. After living, breathing, and studying the park for a good long while, the diary I had started taking on my experiences there eventually grew into a book-length poem about it. That book would never have happened without inspiration from and the information in the books on this list.
I wanted to see what the park was planned to be in order to compare its original design with what it has become.
Brenwall gave me all of that preliminary background information in great detail, not just with her historical commentary but through the nineteenth-century maps and designs she shares. I took great pleasure in comparing Frederick Olmstead’s winning design with the many other possible layouts the park could have had.
What’s more, the book itself is beautiful. Urban planning has never looked so good.
Drawing on the unparalleled collection of original designs for Central Park in the New York City Municipal Archives, Cynthia S. Brenwall tells the story of the creation of New York's great public park, from its conception to its completion. This treasure trove of material ranges from the original winning competition entry; to meticulously detailed maps; to plans and elevations of buildings, some built, some unbuilt; to elegant designs for all kinds of fixtures needed in a world of gaslight and horses; to intricate engineering drawings of infrastructure elements. Much of it has never been published before. A virtual time machine…
