Volume 4, Issue 5
Endangered species display beginning May 9

May 19 is Endangered Species Day. To complement UW Botanic Gardens' Education programs on this topic, we'll be featuring the library's best resources on endangered species. Our collection includes books and DVDs on the control of invasive plants and habitat restoration, including work with rare and endangered plants. As those in the field know, working now to preserve and restore native plants and wild lands creates the conditions necessary for endangered plant and animal conservation to continue in the future.

Student project posters will also be on display this month. All students in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington 14 x 14-inch mini-poster to display at the Miller Library. The deadline for submissions has been extended to this Friday, May 5. To participate, send your 14 x 14 poster in .pdf format to hortlib@uw.edu. Send us the electronic version, and we'll cover the printing and mounting costs.

The Miller Library Top Twenty
an annual feature by Laura Blumhagen

What library resources do Miller Library borrowers use the most? Since October 2012, four out of the top 5 most-borrowed items were from our Pacific Norhwest Connections Collection. Borrowers consistently look for information on practical projects such as pruning, restoration, and propagation, and they pursue more esoteric tasks such as rain garden design and learning to recognize landscape plants. Books on our region’s wildlife, native plants, and well-suited ornamental plants, especially those by local authors, continue to be very popular. Our Children’s Collection attracts parents, teachers, and our youngest borrowers with picture books that capture the imagination.

1. Plants of the Pacific Northwest coast
2. Encyclopedia of Northwest native plants for gardens and landscapes
3. The flora of Seattle in 1850
4. Planting the dry shade garden
5. Trees of Seattle
6. The princess and the peas
7. Rain gardens
8. Native plants in the coastal garden
9. Cass Turnbull’s guide to pruning
10. Restoring the Pacific Northwest
11. Encyclopedia of garden ferns
12. Second nature
13. Penguin and Pinecone
14. Winter gardening in the maritime Northwest: cool-season crops for the year-round gardener
15. Plant propagation
16. Landscaping for wildlife in the Pacific Northwest
17. Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest
18. The botanical garden
19. Beauty by design
20. Designing with conifers

Environmental Horticulture:
Science and Management of Green Landcapes
reviewed by Brian Thompson

The subject of Environmental Horticulture, a new book in the Miller Library by Ross Cameron and James Hitchmough, is best described by the book’s subtitle: “Science and Management of Green Landscapes.” The intended audience is broad, but I would recommend it for professionals managing large landscapes used for almost any purpose, and for students researching landscape management principles.

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 define Environmental Horticulture as “…the subset of horticulture that is concerned with the use and management of plants in public and semi-public environments.” They discuss how this term is nearly the equivalent of “urban horticulture” or “landscape horticulture” with the difference uses reflecting national preferences. “Urban horticulture,” for example, hasn’t caught on as a descriptor in Great Britain.

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 purchase of this book was made possible by a grant from the Washington State Nursery and Landscape Association.

New to the Library