Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing : Master the Concepts and Methods of Observing and Rendering Nature

“Learning the art of drawing is a skill. Therefore, anyone can learn to draw, if you have patience, persistence, and passion.” With these words of Cover of Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing: birch trees in field encouragement, Seattle author and artist Suzanne Brooker begins “Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing.”

To start, it is important to realize that the key element of drawing is what the author calls “visual thinking,” a practice that does not involve verbal language. By drawing, one develops this mode of noticing and perceiving, no matter the quality of the results.

Of course, techniques are important building blocks and Chapter 2 starts with an introduction to the primary tool of drawing, the graphite pencil. This may seem like a simple topic, but there are many options, including how to hold and direct the pencil. Each step of this tutorial is clearly illustrated, with strokes to practice and even exercises to help your hands adjust to this unfamiliar physical activity.

The following chapters continue in this same, gentle teaching manner with basic concepts such as lighting and composition. At last, about halfway through the book, the student is ready to consider the elements to capture in landscape drawing, including the sky, the geometric planes and textures of terrain, trees and their foliage, and water.

The last chapter gives a brief introduction to other types of pencils, including colored and pastel that could lead the reader in another direction. As Brooker concludes, “the activity of drawing is filled with exploration and experimentation.”

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on August 22, 2023

Excerpted from the Fall 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

A Secret Garden: The Story of Darts Hill Garden Park

Trees of Darts Hill Garden Park Francisca Darts (1916-2012) had a wide range of interests. Born in the Netherlands, she loved winter sports, including skating and curling. The latter she learned at age nine when her family moved to Canada. She bred and raised Shetland sheepdogs, enjoyed traveling, and was an avid reader and buyer of books. She and her husband Ed Darts (1903-1994) were early adopters of a home audio system to listen to their large collection of classical and big band records.

All these were secondary to her main love – gardening. “A Secret Garden” tells the story of the Darts and the large property in Surrey. British Columbia they purchased soon after they were married. Initially, there was no electricity, telephone, or water, just lots of stumps leftover from logging. Over nearly 60 years, they turned 7.5 acres of the property into a showpiece of primarily woody plants with over 1,600 distinct types of trees and shrubs.

Author Margaret Cadwaladr skillfully weaves the story of the garden with Francisca and Ed’s many interests. Ed was keen on fruit trees, planted a large orchard, and was a mainstay with his fruit displays at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver for 35 years. Francisca was fond of rhododendrons and magnolias, but also keen on alpine rockeries. She was well-known by a wide spectrum of plant enthusiasts throughout the region, including in Seattle. “Francisca loved plants and was hard-pressed to name a favourite, or if she did, others would soon be her favourite.”

Fortunately, all of these plant passions have been preserved as Darts Hill Garden Park by the city of Surrey. It is not very far after crossing the Canadian border; I enjoyed my first visit this past June. I recommend it to all garden enthusiasts, especially of woody plants.

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on August 22, 2023

Excerpted from the Fall 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Golden Trees of the Mountain West: A Natural History of the Northwestern Larch

Cover for Golden Trees of the Mountain West showing mountains and gold-leafed trees in foreground. Stephen Arno has been writing about Pacific Northwest trees since the 1970s. In 2021, he published “Golden Trees of the Mountain West,” a profile of the two species of larch found in the Pacific Northwest, Larix occidentalis, the western larch, and L. lyallii, the alpine larch. Unlike most conifers, these species are deciduous and achieve glorious fall color in shades of gold. I have been in the Cascades during October and marveled at the bright yellow, almost chartreuse, of the western Larch, standing in contrast to the surrounding dark greens of other conifers.

These two Larix species thrive in different ecosystems. The western larch is a large tree, up to 200 feet in height. It grows fast to outpace the competition, as its seedlings are not tolerant of shade. The alpine larch grows at higher elevations, above 8,400 feet, and is smaller and slow growing with a maximum height of 80 feet. Both are restricted to east of the Cascades and on the west slopes of the Rockies, extending northward into Canada.

Arno includes the history of how these trees were used by indigenous peoples and later by the timber industry. Most valuable are the detailed guides to places to drive or hike to see prominent forests of these magnificent trees.

Reviewed by: Brian Thompson on August 22, 2023

Excerpted from the Fall 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Searching for Sunshine: Finding Connections with Plants, Parks, and the People Who Love Them

Ishita Jain grew up in New Delhi, India, and moved to New York City in 2018. While used to being in a big city, she found the change in climate quite a shock, especially during the cold, dark winter months. To cope, she spent as much time as she could outside exploring her new city.

Her book Searching for Sunshine reflects what she found in parks, gardens, and other places where plants are abundant. But she was more than just a casual observer. A skilled artist, she made drawings of plants – from single flowers to whole trees – along with other sights of city life.

Another way she engaged was with the people active in green places. She would ask them “about their experience of working with the natural world, the impact of nature on their everyday lives, and why plants make us happy.“

The resulting book is a delightful blend of text and graphical depictions of her interviews, which cover a wide spectrum of personalities and livelihoods. These include Tama Matsuoka Wong, who is a forager and the author of Into the Weeds, another book in the Miller Library collection.

Jain also explored a favorite park with Jose Lopez, Deputy Director of Parklands for New York City. She met with Dr. Barbara Ambrose and her colleagues in laboratory research to learn about their work at the New York Botanical Garden. Other interviewees included a florist, an entomologist, and the horticulture staff for a large (almost 500 acres with 7,000 trees) cemetery in Brooklyn.

Rebecca Alexander, recently retired after 20 years on the Miller Library staff, considers this one of the library’s books that made a lasting impression upon her. She describes Searching for Sunshine as an “embodiment of why plants matter to people, exuberantly illustrated.”

Reviewed by Brian Thompson in The Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 12, Issue 8, August 2025.

The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger

Plants do astonishing things. This book presents multiple descriptions of the ways they interact with each other and with the environment, including with us. For most readers this information alone will make the book worth reading and contemplating.

One plant, Arabidopsis, responds to gentle strokes with a soft paintbrush with dramatic hormonal and genetic changes that cause it to bulk up or slow its growth. In nature, the plant may be reacting to frequent wind gusts.

Corn plants attacked by caterpillars release a gas that attracts the specific wasps that eat those specific caterpillars. Rye plants, previously scraggly weeds in wheat fields, changed shape to mimic wheat to avoid being pulled out. Eventually they became the rye crop grown for its own value.

All these changes have taken place more quickly than can happen in evolution—sometimes in days or even in minutes.

Underlying all this activity is the question of how we should think about plants in the light of this information. What language should we use, and what conclusions should we draw from that choice of language? Are plants intelligent beings? The book’s title offers an example. When plants take in sunlight and convert it to chlorophyll, is that “eating”? When plants interact in ways that in animals can happen only with the use of a brain, which plants don’t have, is that “thinking?”

Or should we develop language to describe all this that doesn’t compare plants to animals? The choice of language has a major effect on our thinking. If plants are essentially like us, they deserve higher ranking on our lists of priorities for protection or destruction.

The title reveals Schlanger’s answer: plants eat. She also makes clear, however, that scientists are seriously divided on the question. While giving lots of fascinating information, this book asks you to rethink the whole concept of the plant world.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy and published in the Leaflet, Volume 12, Issue 7, July 2025.

The Serviceberry: Abundance & Reciprocity in the Natural World

The Serviceberry tree lives in a reciprocal relationship with its environment – it takes only what it needs to grow and gives its fruit abundantly. Robin Wall Kimmerer uses the plant, especially in its Native American context, as a model for the gift economy she argues we must create.

Kimmerer’s Serviceberry is a western species, Amelanchier alnifolia, which is good to eat, unlike a common eastern variety, A. arborea. Indigenous groups use it many ways, as an important element of their diet. Readers may recognize the plant by one of its many other names: Saskatoon, Juneberry, Shadbush, Shadblow, Sugarplum and Sarvis. Kimmerer uses these alternatives as she writes.

After comparing the Northwest Native American potlatch, which involves much mutual gift giving, and other examples of Native American sharing to the economy she wants us to develop, Kimmerer admits that scaling the process up to a national or international practice has proven difficult or impossible. In the end she submits that even small scale “intentional communities of mutual self-reliance and reciprocity” provide benefits to the givers and receivers and to the natural world:

“The real human needs that such arrangements address are exactly what we long for yet cannot ever purchase: being valued for your own unique gifts, earning the regard of your neighbors for the quality of your character, not the quantity of your possessions; what you give, not what you have” (p. 92).

The Serviceberry makes a good case on its own. It is even more effective as a follow-up to Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, a fuller account of the interdependence of humans and nature. Read them both.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy in The Leaflet, Volume 12, Issue 5, May 2025.

The English Landscape Garden : Dreaming of Arcadia

In the 1720s, the 3rd Earl of Burlington planted orange trees at Chiswick House to show his unhappiness with the current Whig Party. Orange trees were associated with William of Orange, whose accession to the English throne in 1689 had been engineered by the Whigs Burlington favored. Politics in the garden. Think of a Republican now placing a statue of Eisenhower in her garden to show she liked Republicans from that era as opposed to the present party.

With a surprising account of how elements in many gardens showed the owners’ political affiliations, often with the Whig Party, Tim Richardson lures readers from the temptation to skip his text and just admire the many elegant photos. The book presents in chronological order a group of English landscape gardens developed in the 18th century.

Later in the century political elements disappear from these gardens. Richardson shows the changes in garden design from an easing of formality in the first part of the century to the even less formal designs of Lancelot Brown in midcentury to the curated wildness of the Picturesque style at the end.

A landscape garden includes “episodes,” various areas with a particular focus, often a statue or a structure such as a temple or hermitage. Our current concept of garden may be stretched by knowing that dozens of buildings were integral to the design of some of these gardens.

Part of the change of design over the years was from an episode that was intended to be experienced for itself to, in the picturesque era, a location framed so one could look out to a distant vista or a nearby “natural” scene such as a carefully engineered waterfall.

Juicy biographical tidbits about the owners of these gardens add to the flavor. John Aislabie, for instance, turned his attention to developing Studley Royal, his marvelous Yorkshire garden, only after he was disgraced for financial shenanigans leading to the South Sea Bubble in 1720, which caused an international financial crisis.

Excellent photographs and garden maps combine with this lively and engaging text to make The English Landscape Garden a very worthwhile read.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy in the Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 12, Issue 3, April 2025

Paths of Pollen

Who would think that a collection of essays on pollen that ends with 23 pages of citations of scientific studies would make fascinating reading for non-scientists? Paths of Pollen wins the prize.

Stephen Humphrey writes of varieties of pollen, of pollinators, of strategies for pollinating, and of many challenges to the process. If you thought honey bees did all the world’s pollinating, he introduces you to the many alternatives – dozens of other kinds of bees, other insects like beetles, animals like bats, even the wind. A few plants even pollinate themselves.

Pollen is tough. Microfossils of pollen survived the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago. Now these fossils have become evidence of the existence of extinct trees otherwise unknown.

Colony collapse, the loss of vast numbers of honeybee hives, made headlines in 2006. Humphrey presents a study suggesting that collapse may not be the most serious problem. Although the cause of collapse remains a mystery, plenty of honey bees survive. Wild bees, on the other hand, face more dire problems.

Squash bees visit and pollinate only flowers of the squash family, including pumpkins, as well as many kinds of squash. These bees live underground, in tunnels they dig themselves. A bee weighing a tenth of a gram displaces three grams of dirt in the process, thirty times its weight. The species has adapted over several thousand years of connecting with squash agriculture, notably Native American agriculture, but elsewhere as well. Now it may disappear. Pesticide used to prevent wilt is widely sprayed on the ground, where the tunnels are, endangering these bees. If honey bees do become scarce, wild bees will be essential.

Numerous accounts like that of the squash bee make this book a good read. Particularly of interest to gardeners, it resonates for all of us who recognize the value of plants.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy in The Leaflet, Volume 12, Issue 3, March 2025.

The Tree Hunters

Beginning in the 18th century, collecting exotic trees became a national passion in Britain. Country gentlemen (yes, male landowners) strove to outdo each other in assembling trees from faraway sources. In The Tree Hunters, Thomas Pakenham takes the reader to visit the resulting arboreta and to accompany the tree hunters on the sometimes perilous expeditions to collect the seeds that grew into those arboreta.

Kew Gardens earns a substantial notice as an early site. Princess Augusta and her son George III supported efforts to make Kew a center for multiple varieties of trees. The first arboretum open to the public was not Kew but Glasnevin in Dublin. The Dublin Society opened the site by 1800. It included representatives of Linnaeus’s 23 botanical classes, as was thought appropriate, and in addition some examples of attractive variations of each, such as “all kinds of oddities among the fruit trees” (p. 126). Walter Wade, who selected them may have shocked purists by these choices, “but Wade knew when it was time to play to the gallery.”

Of the many tree hunters in this book, David Douglas may be the most amazing. He collected in South America, in the U.S. on both coasts, and finally in Hawaii. His seeds gave Britain the Douglas fir and the noble fir among many dozens of others. In searching he drove himself to exhaustion repeatedly. In the end, in Hawaii, he died by falling into a hidden pit designed to trap cattle. Or was he murdered? Pakenham tells stories well.

The Tree Hunters recounts many fascinating adventures; it also includes much specific information. The excellent index, for instance, has 19 subtopics under “oak.”

Pakenham lists several reasons for this competition to create arboreta– a change in landscape design to one that popularized variety in trees; huge growth in the number of plant nurseries in Britain; the development and growth of horticultural societies. Surely the dominance of the British empire in the 19th century helped the impulse as well. Something in the atmosphere must also fostered that Victorian love of collecting things, of which these arboreta were a happy part.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy in Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 12, Issue 2, February 2025.

Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science

Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin shared a passion for the natural world that included close scientific observation and an awe at what they saw that made nature magical. This was true even though neither of them could commit themselves to belief in God or any other supernatural being.

In Natural Magic, Renée Bergland makes the case that Darwin’s writings showed his enchantment with nature, contrary to a public that often read his works as destroying such awe.

Dickinson showed similar enthusiasm for the plants she wrote about. Her work also shows how carefully she examined and described those plants.

In alternating chapters, Bergland has put together parallel biographies. She combines her argument that Darwin included emotional response and Dickinson a scientific one with a history of the changing ideas about the relationship between the sciences and arts in the nineteenth century. In 1780 science and art were all part of one “philosophy.” By 1880 they were separate and at odds with each other.

It is a pleasure to enter into the challenges and relationships of these two towering figures. Regret that the book must come to an end is rare enough for fiction; for this reader it was a first for nonfiction. The book is easy to read – not always true for works built around intellectual history – and full of memorable details.

Darwin, who was enthralled by geology, plants, and animals from childhood, could not find much formal training in science. He suffered from a classical English education which excluded nearly all science, and he hated school. Dickinson, on the other hand, happened to live in a short period of time in America when science was considered essential to girls’ education, and she loved her classes at her Amherst school and her year at Mount Holyoke. She had more formal training in science than he did. He learned it all on his own.

During the nineteenth century science and art were separating. The term “scientist” was first used in the 1830s, replacing “men of science,” since women were excluded. No one, male or female, could earn a living as a scientist. It’s worth noting that both Darwin and Dickinson came from wealthy families, or in Dickinson’s case, wealthy enough, so neither of them needed to work for a salary. Darwin eventually earned handsomely from his books. Dickinson published only a few poems, for no pay.

Sometimes Bergland’s efforts to show parallels in these two lives seem a bit stretched. Still, she is convincing about the connections between their two worlds, and she brings her two subjects very much to life in a time of exciting change.

Review by Priscilla Grundy published in The Leaflet, Volume 12, Issue 1, January 2025.