![[Chinese Medicinal Plants, Herbal Drugs and Substitutes] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/Chinesemedicinalplantsherbaldrugsandsubstitutes.jpg)
“Herbal drug ingredients (materia medica) are pivotal to the practice of herbal Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), an integral component of China’s national healthcare system.” After this introduction, the authors of Chinese Medicinal Plants, Herbal Drugs and Substitutes: 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.
All identified drugs are in the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China as compiled by that country’s Ministry of Health. The authors are at two prestigious organizations that worked together for fifteen years on this project. Christine Leon is at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Lin Yu-Lin is at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. 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 800 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.
Published in the June 2018 edition of Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 5, Issue 6.
![[A New Garden Ethic] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/newgardenethic.jpg)
I recently read and returned a new book to the Elisabeth C. Miller Library: A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future by Benjamin Vogt. As I told Laura Blumhagen, this is one of the most important books I have ever read. Bear in mind, I read about 100 nonfiction books a year and I’m not easily impressed. It reminds me of Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac, but I find it even better written. In just 163 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: moving beyond a preoccupation with beautiful trees and flowers to gardening as if other species and other ecosystems mattered. 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. Don’t miss the delight of reading this thought-provoking book!
Published in the June 2018 Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 5, Issue 6.
![[Botanical Shakespeare] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/botanicalshakespeare.jpg)
If you are attending outdoor Shakespeare plays this summer and enjoy plants, this book is for you! With the collaboration of the noted Japanese artist Sumié Hasegawa-Collins, Gerit Quealy provides an alphabetical portrait gallery of plants – The Botanicals. You can discover Shakespeare’s flowers, fruits, herbs, trees, seeds, and grasses. Quotations beside the drawings of the plants themselves allow us to experience their “faces” in fascinating and helpful ways. For example, cockle, a flowering weed found in wheat fields, is metaphorically used to describe corruption. It is mentioned by the frantic Ophelia in Hamlet and the raving Jailer’s Daughter in Two Noble Kinsmen.
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: you can thumb through and find a quotation about your favorite plant or learn something new in Botanicals Defined: 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. The glossary illuminates the history of Shakespeare’s era with facts, plant lore, anecdotes, and clever illustrations. For example, the entry on the “Barnacles” mentioned in The Tempest tells of a fourteenth century traveler’s tale, accepted by John Gerard, about geese that developed in barnacle-like pods on a tree. We now know that barnacle goslings are hatched by mother geese on islands in the Arctic, but Shakespeare’s “Barnacles” would have alluded to a strange plant/shellfish/bird chimera. The most impressive part of this book is how frequently plants arise in William Shakespeare’s work.
This labor of love was inspired in part by Gerard’s Herball as well as Shakespeare’s Plants and Gardens: A Dictionary by Nicki Faircloth and Vivian Thomas . On our wish list, this 2014 dictionary is not currently available in local libraries. The author also cites Henry Ellacombe’s The plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare, which has been made available electronically at Archive.org by University College London.
Published in the June 2018 Leaflet Volume 5, Issue 6.
![[Ecological Literacy] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/ecologicalliteracy.jpg)
When is the right time to re-read a classic? When the message is compelling and more urgent than ever, as is the call for ecological literacy. Political and business leaders as well as students at all levels of the education system need to fully recognize that the earth is a complex system of interrelationships – geographic, economic, ecological, and sociopolitical. We are all members of this community of life, and need to do our part accordingly.
Ecological literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World is edited by Michael J. Stone and Zenobia Barlow of the Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley, California. American educator David W. Orr and physicist Fritjof Capra coined the term ecological literacy in the 1990s to mean understanding the principles of organization of ecological communities and using those principles for strengthening human communities.
The book features contributions from a range of distinguished writers and educators, such as Wendell Berry, Malcolm Margolin, Alice Waters, as well as David Orr and Fritjof Capra, who share their knowledge and empathy for how the world works and makes life possible. At the basic level, it helps educators weave themes of ecology into their teaching from many perspectives. The book sections include Vision, Tradition/Place, Relationship, and Action.
Published by Sierra Club Books, this book calls upon us to refresh, strengthen, and expand our solution-oriented thinking for a sustainable world. The action of one individual can make a great difference in the well-being of the earth. It is time for each of us to renew our commitment.
Reviewed by Dorothy Crandell and published in the June 2018 Leaflet Volume 5, Issue 6.
![[Essential Pruning Techniques] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/Essentialpruningtechniques.jpg)
One of the classics of horticultural literature is The Pruning of Trees, Shrubs and Conifers by George E. Brown. Published in 1972, 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 1980. Tony Kirkham, the current head of the arboretum, gardens, and horticultural services at Kew, updated his work with a second edition in 2004. Now Kirkham has published a further revision and considerable expansion of Brown’s original work with Essential Pruning Techniques (2017).
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.” Most helpful are the Brown and Kirkham insights to the individual goals for each species – what should be done so “…the form and beauty of trees and shrubs in summer and winter be fully realized.”
Published in the August 2017 Leaflet for Scholars, vol. 4, issue 8
![[Among Flowers] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/AmongflowersKincaid.jpg)
This travelogue about Jamaica Kincaid’s Nepal trek with Daniel Hinkley, searching for seeds to introduce to American gardens, is written from Kincaid’s experience as a neophyte mountaineer. Her focus is on finding seeds she can use in her home garden in Vermont. When she at last succeeds, the reader can share her excitement. She also makes very clear the challenges of this trip for her. She details extreme temperature changes, distances trudged up and down, scary foot bridges crossed, leeches removed. This was not an easy adventure. Throughout, however, she makes clear the struggles were worth it, and she would do it again.
Published in the August 2017 Leaflet, vol. 4, issue 8
![[The Living Jigsaw] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/living_jigsaw.jpg)
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 100 Plants for an Eco-Friendly Garden” has many worthwhile selections for our gardens.
Published in the December 2017 Leaflet, vol. 4, issue 12
![[Thinking the Contemporary Landscape] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/Thinkingthecontemporarylandscape.jpg)
“Landscape architecture must be one of few disciplines capable of merging a deeply symbolic and cultural understanding of nature with the massive environmental transformations to come.” This quotation is from the introduction to Thinking the Contemporary Landscape, edited by Christophe Girot and Dora Imhof.
To expand on this concept, the editors have gathered 17 essays by leading landscape architects worldwide. The first step is recognizing that the ecological discussions of the last many decades have found expression in philosophical discussions and in the arts. Slowly, these are also becoming factors in landscape design.
The changing tools of design are a measure of this transformation, as explained by Seattle architect Kathryn Gustafson. While 3-D models are the standard for any sizeable project, she begins with a clay model to develop a sense of the space she finds difficult to recreate on a computer. Taking this approach to landscape design, she finds that “people use it the way that you imagined.”
The later essays seek to understand the power found in a local terrain. However, this power can be in conflict with design principles based on current global trends in ecology and economics, or even the basic concept of what is natural. While these discussions are at times challenging to understand, this book will broaden the reader’s understanding of the many aspects to any human designed landscape.
Published in the September 2017 Leaflet for Scholars, vol. 4, issue 9
![[book title] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/LearningwithnatureRobb.jpg)
Learning with Nature covers a wealth of contemporary outdoor practices as well as ancient traditions for the young naturalist. This book is of interest to educators, families, and anyone working with groups of children. Many ideas can be adapted for a wide range of ages and group sizes. While developing practical and social skills, these activities bring laughter and fun to a respect for the natural world. The activities and games include warm-ups, team building, tool safety, foraging wild plants, and learning about birds, animals, plants, and trees in the wild. The book is organized into four sections: Games, Naturalist Activities, Seasonal Activities, and Survival Skills.
“Always leave a place better than you found it” is the basic message, to ensure the regeneration of natural resources. Based in the United Kingdom, authors Marina Robb, Victoria Mew, and Ann Richardson generously share ideas gathered from many sources to encourage young people to make the nature connection, spending more time outdoors. One author, Victoria Mew, trained with the internationally recognized Wilderness Awareness School here in Duvall, Washington. Evidence of this training is the first-hand contact with the natural world emphasized in this book, which translates well to North America. Learning with Nature is a guide to understanding, thriving in, and caring for our environment.
Published in the December 2018 Leaflet, vol. 4, issue 12
![[Play the Forest School Way] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/playtheforestschoolway.jpg)
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: Woodland Games, Crafts and Skills for Adventurous Kids offers hands-on learning experiences for a wide range of children from preschool to about 11 years of age. The Forest School philosophy strengthens confidence and builds self-esteem and social skills through connecting with nature. The movement developed in the 1990s was initially inspired by the play-based, nature-centered teaching of Scandinavia, known in Denmark as friluftsliv (‘free open-air life’). In addition, it draws on the learning theories of Rudolf Steiner and Maria Montessori, as well as British Scouting and Woodcraft Folk in the United Kingdom.
Chapters include Nature Explorers, Forest Arts, Survival Skills, and Wildlife Team Games. Inventive and fun activities include making a journey stick, traditionally made by Aboriginal people in Australia to record their travels and help retell their stories. Headdresses can be transformative. Creating natural headdresses from leaves, twigs, acorns, feathers and other finds relate to ceremonial headdresses such as those worn by ancient kings and queens or those worn at carnivals or other celebrations. Survival skills include essential knots, a prehistoric skill that is certainly still important today – even for tying one’s shoelaces, for example. Wildlife team games can be ice breakers, helping to build relationships, confidence, and a sense of belonging. The historical references throughout the book give an ancestral link to interacting with the environment.
Peter Houghton and Jane Worroll in the UK are particularly well qualified as authors of Play the Forest School Way. Peter is an artist in woodwork and other media as well as a leader of Forest School sessions. Jane has degrees in ecology and environmental conservation, and as a Countryside Ranger has managed habitat, monitored protected species, and led volunteers.
Play the Forest School Way helps to keep holistic learning in nature alive, reminding us anew about life experiences that are rooted in the real world.
Published in the May 2018 Leaflet Volume 5, Issue 5.