Books You Just Gotta Read

Besides being a writer, I'm a reader. And after giving myself a whole day this past weekend to do nothing but lie on the couch and read...

Sex in Your Garden
Item # 99654 		Sex in Your Garden

each $19.95
  • Topic: Gifts for Gardeners
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: reading, books, gardening, Other, gardens
  • Date: January 2004

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Besides being a writer, I’m a reader. And after giving myself a whole day this past weekend to do nothing but lie on the couch and read, I thought it’d be fun to share some of my favorite books. I do have a knack for finding out-of-the-way books that turn out to be just fine. The following titles all relate (except one) to gardening:

  • “The 3,000 Mile Garden” by Leslie Land and Roger Phillips (Viking, 1996)—a delightful exchange of letters between two gardeners, one in New Hampshire, the other in London. Because both gardeners have exquisite soil to begin with, it’s hard to relate to while we live in this drought ridden Southwest. Still, it’s a good read.
  • “Living Community” by Ben Haggard (Center for the study of Community, 1993)—this book is the lyrical experience of a Santa Fe man who took on the task of turning a private residence into a showcase of permaculture. His sensitive approach to the land is well worth following for any garden.
  • “Sex, Botany and Empire” by Patricia Fara (Icon Books, 2003)—with Carl Linnaeus’ plant cataloging system based on sexual characteristics, some thought botany was ‘obscene’ and therefore botanists somewhat questionable. This small book goes into the rather risque personal life of Joseph Banks, another early pioneer in the plant identification. Written by an academic, it’s a little ponderous but the information is worth the time.
  • “Second Nature” by Michael Pollan (Delta, 1991)—the author buys an old farm in Connecticut and learns about the fine line between a cultivated garden and the wilderness. The style is literary and he imparts lots of natural history information that is just plain interesting.
  • “Gathering Moss” by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Oregon State University Press, 2003)—this isn’t a gardening book at all but a close examination of moss, something we have very little of in the Southwest. But the author’s enthusiasm makes you want to take a magnifying glass into your garden and see how the smaller worlds are. The magazine Orion somewhat panned this book because the author weaves personal anecdotes among her moss findings. I found her ramblings an interesting break to what otherwise could have been an academic tome.
  • “Safe Sex in the Garden” by Tom Ogren (Ten Speed Press, 2003)—this book is nearly like the author’s other book, “Allergy-Free Gardening,” in that it has lots of lists of plants. But the lists delineate plants’ potential for emitting pollen. It is nothing to curl up with for a long afternoon read, yet the information is detailed and helpful when planning a new garden or remaking an old planting bed.
  • “A Rage for Rock Gardening” by Nicola Shulman (Short Books, 2002)—this is a biography of Reginald Farrer, the man responsible for making rock gardening all the rage in England. So often we think of rock gardens as spaces for succulents and cacti, yet it all began with trying to bring high alpine meadows to lower elevations. This book is a good mix of gardening, natural history and biography.

I hope you give yourself a day to just lounge around and read!