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Elisabeth C. Miller Library

Keyword: Reviews

The Art of Gardening: Design Inspiration and Innovative Planting Techniques From Chanticleer

Art of gardening book jacketIn June 2005, I attended a conference for plant science librarians in Philadelphia. After a long day of presentations, business meetings, and visits to libraries, I wasn’t expecting much from a visit to small garden west of the city near Villanova University.

Instead, that evening at Chanticleer was one of the most magical garden experiences of my lifetime. The weather was perfect, cooled down from the already warm and humid beginning of summer. A glass of wine and a convivial group of colleagues added to the good feelings, but mostly it was the stunning garden rooms, plantings, and artwork of this most amazing garden.

Now there is an exciting new book, “The Art of Gardening”, which takes its place among the best of all garden profiles. Written by R. William Thomas and the horticultural staff of Chanticleer, this not only transports the reader to the garden, it is also an excellent source of design ideas and plant choices for your own garden. I don’t purchase many gardening books for my home library since I have daily access to the Miller Library collections, but this is one that I will get for sure.

Published in the March 2016 Leaflet Volume 3, Issue 3.

Artful Rainwater Design

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Stuart Echols and Eliza Pennypacker are on the faculty of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Penn State University. They have combined their academic interests in stormwater management and sustainable landscapes to write “Artful Rainwater Design”.

Much of the tone of the book is captured in this quotation about changing terminology: “Stormwater—a waste product and common enemy blamed for property damage through flooding and for surface water and aquatic system damage through pollutant conveyance—has morphed into rainwater, a valued natural resource beneficial to our water cycle.” Techniques, design principles, dealing with public relations, and many case studies—including several in the Pacific Northwest—make this an important book for anyone involved with any aspect of water management in urban settings.

Published in the March 2016 Leaflet for Scholars Volume 3, Issue 3.

Edible Heirlooms: Heritage Vegetables for the Maritime Garden

book jacketEdible Heirlooms is a great little book! Little only in dimensions and number of pages, as the author carefully defines his purpose and limits his scope, but within those parameters shows you how to grow an outstanding vegetable garden in the maritime Pacific Northwest.

Most important, he sees this endeavor as part of a larger picture. “The challenge for me is to somehow integrate my vegetable-growing practices into a diverse ecosystem and, if possible, enhance biodiversity.” The key for this is to use heirloom varieties that can be regrown from collected seeds. Besides the mouth-watering descriptions, you will also get an excellent history lesson.

The Tao of Vegetable Gardening

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Carol Deppe is a witty and engaging writer based in western Oregon. Her third book on vegetable gardening, The Tao of Vegetable Gardening, is particularly valuable if you are growing tomatoes in our maritime climate, hoping to maximize your output of salad greens, or passionate about seed saving. Infused throughout are her philosophies on life and gardening, and you can read about the amazing adventures of Garden Woman, while learning some great weeding techniques, too!

Straw Bale Gardens Complete

book jacketI was surprised to learn that there is a new way to grow vegetables. Inside straw bales. Yes, that is what I said, inside straw. This new book by Joel Karsten, Straw Bale Gardens Complete (Cool Springs Press, 2015), explains a method of growing and harvesting crops which is useful for increasing productivity while reducing labor. The chapters thoroughly cover planning your straw bale garden, and making straw bale greenhouses. There are extensive pages of garden layouts, including single, two, and three-bale gardens with tomato cages, trellises, and suggested plants. This approach to container gardening is using the straw bale itself, held together with two or three strings, with the outside crust of the bale serving as the container. The straw inside the bale will decompose, making it “conditioned” and ready to plant. The author gives step by step instructions for conditioning to create a warm, moist and nutrient rich rooting environment for seedlings. The author points out that straw bale gardens are ideal if you can’t do heavy lifting, can’t bend over, have poor soil, or limited space.

One thing to keep in mind is the difference between hay and straw, which often are confused. Straw comes from one of the cereal small-grain plants. Most common are oats, wheat, barley, rice, flax and rye. Hay is green, more coarse and wiry than straw. Hay can be baled alfalfa or any dozens of different grasses. Hay is fed to livestock as fodder. It contains all the seed heads inside the bale. But hay is not desirable for bale gardens. The book explains how to find and maintain the best straw for growing plants. If you are looking for a source for straw in the Seattle area, I’ve been able to supply my chickens with straw from The Grange in the University District. I also recommend using organic straw for vegetable gardening because you will want straw that has not been treated with herbicides or pesticides. Organic bales are usually sold at about the same prices as conventional ones.

The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Seed Saving

In the summer of 2015, I visited Seed Savers Exchange, a remarkable mecca for growers of heirloom vegetables, herbs, and flowers.  Located in rural Iowa, this organization has become world-renowned for its preservation of over 20,000 varieties of mostly food plants, not only providing safe storage for the seeds, but also maintaining the vitality of their collections by selective growing, germination testing, and researching the history of their sources.

While I would encourage all gardeners to visit Seed Savers, this may not be practical.  So instead, considering reading The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Seed Saving, published by the Exchange (and written by Micaela Colley and Jared Zystro) in which the basic philosophy and practices of the organization are distilled into very useful handbook for the home gardener.

Like many gardeners, I’ve done a bit of seed saving, and this book starts at that level – assuming a basic understanding of good gardening practices with a reminder that saved seeds are only useful from open-pollinated plants crossed with other plants from the same population.  Hybrids will not breed true.

I learned in the entry on lettuce – considered easy for beginners – that these plants are almost completely self-pollinating, and that different varieties only need 10 feet of separation to ensure purity.  Lettuce produces abundant seeds, but the quality is best on plants that are allowed to grow to maturity with minimal harvest, suggesting its best to designate a few stock plants for your breeding purposes.

There are also “Master Class” sections that cover more advanced subjects, including building isolation cages, avoiding inbreeding, and doing your own germination testing.  Most interesting is the process of extracting seeds from really messy plants, like tomatoes, but even with these, the reader is encouraged to try, using common kitchen tools.

The tone of the book throughout is positive and encouraging.  Even the usual negatives can be turned around.  “For many gardeners, the sight of bolting lettuce signals that its leaves have turned bitter and unpalatable, but these emerging flower talks also signal an impending harvest of ripened seeds.”  After reading this book I’m ready, with my patch of ‘Red Velvet’ lettuce, to become a serious seed saver.

 

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2016

CBHL Newsletter

Online access to back issues, many of which include reviews of books of horticultural interest.

Chicago Botanic Garden book reviews

“Current Books on Gardening & Botany” is an Internet-only journal reviewing new books and other media about gardening, horticulture, and botany. Reviews cover a wide range of new literature in print and digital form and are written primarily by the staff of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Flora of Oregon. Volume 1.

Flora of Oregon. Volume 1 cover

The first comprehensive flora of the state of Oregon in over 50 years is in progress with the first of three volumes released this summer. This volume is focused on ferns and their kin, conifers, and monocots, but in addition to the expected and detailed plant descriptions and range maps, there is an excellent introduction to the wide diversity of ecosystems in this state, including the Siskiyou Mountains. “Rare plants in the region are concentrated on serpentinite and dunite and soils derived from these heavy-metal rich rocks. Many of these plants are narrow endemics of only southwestern Oregon, but several have ranges that extend into adjacent northwestern California.”

Taking a cue from field guides, “Flora of Oregon” includes a list of recommended places throughout the state to see the greatest number of plant species. Highlights in the Siskiyou Mountains ecoregion include the Table Rocks (although beware, there are geographical features elsewhere in Oregon that also go by this name), the trail through the Rogue River canyon downstream from Grants Pass, and the Mt. Ashland-Siskiyou Peak ridge that “is home to a unique flora that is transitional between California and Oregon floras.”

If you’d prefer to explore nature from the comfort of your couch (or one of the comfortable chairs in the Miller Library), you might vicariously go botanizing by reading the biographies of a dozen or so prominent Oregon botanists included in the introduction. I found the story of Lilla Leach (1886-1980) most interesting, especially her discovery of the Siskiyou Mountains endemic and monotypic genus Kalmiopsis leachiana.

In 1930, she was walking ahead of her husband John Leach, who was also an active field botanist, and their pack burros when “‘suddenly I beheld a small patch of beautiful, low growing, deep rose-colored plants. Because of their beauty, I started running and dropped to my knees.'” May we all have such exciting moments when exploring for our native plants!

Excerpted from the Winter 2016 Arboretum Bulletin.