Winter Reading

 "What a pleasure it is to read books without the weeds calling, to bake cakes and slow cook stews, to daydream about flowers. I have time to scheme about gardens, to change my mind multiple times on how to improve their design, to plot what plants to add next spring, what seeds to order." Page Dickey

Here are some reading recommendations from some of our club members. Add your own favourites in the comments.

Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated by Charles, Prince of Wales, Bunny Guinness, chosen by Joyce Rae

"Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated is one of my favourite coffee-table books.  After a slog in the garden, I enjoy a relaxing browse through the many beautiful garden photos.  On a rainy day, it makes for great reading with garden design, inspiration and practicalities in the mix." 

RH Walters goodreads review: One garden was inspired by Prince Charles gazing at a Persian carpet. I learned that the meadows of Transylvania are largely pristine with fantastic flowers and insect life due to ancient farming practices (now threatened, of course) and scything has become a popular activity due to new light-weight scythes. Although most of us wouldn't be able to develop a garden on this scale, it still gave me ideas and inspiration for a small space. 

Lesley suggests

Blue Heaven by Bill Terry

Amazon description: Blue Heaven: Encounters with the Blue Poppy tells the story of the enchanting Himalayan Blue Poppy. It begins in 1924 in Tibet, where the renowned plant explorer Frank Kingdon-Ward came upon "a stream of blue poppies, dazzling as sapphires in the pale light." Soon the blue poppy was introduced to cultivation and proved challenging, stubborn, even believed to be impossible to grow.

In Blue Heaven, Bill Terry—a leading North American authority on Asiatic poppies—debunks this myth, relating his own encounters with the blue poppy and showing how, given a suitable climate, a patient and persistent gardener can raise this most alluring of perennial plants. Gorgeous photographs accompany the text throughout, leading to a visually stunning collection of images and stories, illuminating this rare and precious flower.

Sharon picked The 20-minute Vegetable Gardener:  Gourmet Gardening for the Rest of Us by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher.

"The 20-minute Vegetable Gardener:  Gourmet Gardening for the Rest of Us by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher.  This is the quirkiest gardening book I have ever come across.  Part journal, part cookbook and part how-to guide, this humourous book has provided many useful tidbits and some shifts in perception.  If you want to take a walk on the wilder side of gardening books, this book might be worth hunting for."

Another suggestion from Sharon:  Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman,  illustrations by Judy Pedersen.

"This is a lovely piece of juvenile fiction recommended for ages 10 and up.  A young girl plants some seeds in amongst the garbage and debris of an empty urban lot.  This short book describes how that act of hope impacted other people in the neighborhood.  Seeds grow plants, hearts and community.  Consider this award winning book for the children in your life". ALA Best Books for Young Adults (1998), Buckeye Children's Book Award (1999)

For more suggestions for garden books for kids: www.the-best-childrens-books.org/plants-for-kids

Sue chose: Winter Wren by Theresa Kishkan

"Winter Wren is a novella set on a beach west of Victoria, B.C. in 1974.  An artist of mature years  struggles to find an artistic language to examine her place and her history. All the while tiny birds are ever present, living their quiet and busy lives in the underbrush near her cabin. The author is also a poet which is  evident in her lyrical description of nature."

Anonymous: Your Wellbeing Garden: How to Make Your Garden Good for You and the Science Behind It by Matt Knightley and Alistair Griffiths with Annie Gatti and Zia Allaway for the Royal Horticultural Society

Publisher's description: "The way you design your garden, and the plants you choose, can impact on your psyche: on your wellbeing and stress levels; on your immune and cardiovascular systems; and on your engagement with nature at a primal level. It can help neutralize pollution from noise, pollens, exhaust fumes and gases, and help reduce your household energy and water consumption.

Research in recent years has shown tangible benefits for our wellbeing from the act of gardening and from contact with green spaces: it can counteract obesity, nature deficit disorder, and depression. Understand the science and how you can use it, and your garden will truly become your paradise."

From another who wishes to remain anonymous: 

The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald

"Author Michael Grunwald provides a riveting look at a swamp filled with danger, unpredictable currents, sucking quicksand, predators and prey, and treachery. And that’s just when he is describing Florida politics. The real star of the book is the Florida Everglades, a unique, threatened and vulnerable ecosystem in Florida. Known as the river of grass, it’s a long, gently sloping swamp which once covered a large percentage of the state and was home to a staggering array of flora and fauna." 

Clark Hays, a goodreads review 

Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again by Page Dickey (the blog gal's pick)

"There is something both inspiring and reassuring in reading the account of leaving a beloved garden and starting again.  With thoughts of downsizing the author ends up buying a property three times the size of her former property, at the age of 70. We can't help ourselves, can we."

Publisher's description: Page Dickey knew the transitions she faced walking away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill after thirty-four years. What surprised her were the happy opportunities that came with starting over. Uprooted follows Dickey’s evolution from old to new, cultivated to wild, and from one type of gardener to another. It is a story for anyone who has had to begin anew—in gardening or in life.

And last but certainly not least

The Way Home: How a Naïve Single Mom Built her House in the Forest by Terry Faubert

What does it take to achieve a life’s goal, to follow a precious dream through to reality? Money? Influential connections? Knowledge or skills? In the spring of 1983, Terry Faubert hadn’t much of those as she set out to move to the country with her young son, her cat, and little else. Longing to raise her five-year-old in tune with nature, she planned somehow to make a life for them out in the forest. She would need to find land that she could purchase with her scant savings and to build a house they could live in. She had never built anything before and had no idea how to go about it.

Small and slight, naïve and inexperienced, Terry had little awareness that spring day of the hurdles and challenges ahead. This is her story—a story of determination and perseverance, of improbable ideas and unlikely successes.

This is our own Terry who so masterfully coordinates the garden club annual fertiliser sale. Congratulations Terry!

All these books can be purchased online or ordered through the library.