Books
Here’s a wholly prejudiced selection of gift books for gardeners, beginning with the authors you’ve heard me interview on NPR. I also recommend that everyone check out the titles offered by Timber Press, the country's unrivaled publisher of horticultural/gardening books.

By Michael Pollan The Botany of Desire By Michael Pollan Certainly the best-selling garden book of the year, Pollan has reached an astonishingly wide audience with his four essays about the co-evolution of man and plants. Coming Home To Eat By Gary Nabhan If you're not inclined to thinking about the relationship between where you live and what you eat -- indeed, if you've never even considered the importance of such a relationship before -- this is a must-read. Ten Landscapes By Topher Delaney This book of Delaney's garden creations -- none of them small-budget affairs -- will ignite your imagination and inspire coffee table book awe. Plant This! Best Bets for Year-Round Gorgeous Gardens By Ketzel Levine, Rene Eisenbart Yes, my own book. It’s a collection of 100 plant profiles, each with gorgeous watercolor illustrations (I can say that), featuring many plants hardy to zero degrees. Anatomy Of A Rose: Exploring the Secret Life of Flowers By Sharman Apt Russell I've kept this little gem of a book within bathtub reach for months. I never tire of dipping into it for startling and poetically-rendered snippets about plant life on the planet Earth. Flora: An Illustrated History of the Garden Flower By Brent Elliott I've only just found out about this sumptuous book; here's an excerpt from a review in January Magazine: "Some coffee table books are loaded with glorious full color photographs or illustrations. Some are filled with illuminating text... Seldom, however, do you encounter a book that covers all of these areas more than adequately. Flora: An Illustrated History of the Garden Flower does all of these things, and more. Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology By Eric Grissell Hot off the presses from Timber Press, here's a beauty of a book for the ecologically-savvy gardener. Professional entomologist and amateur gardener Eric Grissell suggests that it might be time to declare a truce with the insects in our lives. Truer words never spoken. Dictionary of Plant Names By Allen J. Coombes If the horthead in your life loves Latin names -– and is struggling to pronounce and understand them -– this is indispensable. American Horticultural Society A To Z Encyclopedia Of Garden Plants By Christopher Brickell (Editor), Judith Zuk (Editor). Anyone seriously into plants craves knowledge and devours information. This encyclopedia is the one to have, period. Passionate Gardening By Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor This book bursts at the seam with advice and information, is written with passion and humor, and is downright gorgeous to behold. The Pruning Book By Lee Reich I am continually asked to recommend a pruning book and I do so now with complete confidence. Lee Reich removes the fear of pruning in this manageable how-to book, and may just save the day for that wayward gardener in your life who has a tendancy to hack back rather than lovingly prune. Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping By Rita Buchanan Finally, I have a reply to one of the most-asked questions in gardening: what's the best, all-around, how-to book? Buchanan's tome is a superb all-in-one, whether you're looking at the big picture in garden design or need enlightened advice on the make-or-break details. The longer I look at this book, the more I find. The Pacific Northwest Plant Locator By Susan Narizny and Susan Hill Last but not least, something for Northwest gardeners. Every region of the country should be so blessed. The Plant Locator is just the facts, an exhaustive list of plant names (Latin only, of course) and the NW nurseries that carry them. Plant books just don’t get nerdier than this. Yeah! Back to top Magazines/Newsletters For The All-Around Gardener: Horticulture Magazine Fine Gardening Country Living Gardener The Gardener For The Erudite Gardener: Hortus: A Gardening Journal. If you value pillow talk at night, do not give this to your gardener lover. It’s a heady English quarterly that will consume whatever remains of the day. For The Covetous Gardener: I apologize for hawking English publications but Gardens Illustrated remains the most scintillating of garden magazines. Awfully good writing, too. For The Nitty Gritty Gardener: There’s nothing sexy about the newsletter, HortIdeas but for the hardcore grower and the scientifically-minded, this is the nematode’s pajamas. For a subscription, e-mail gwill@mis.net For The Humor-Impaired Gardener: I don’t believe there’s a funnier gardening newsletter than the one published by PlantAmnesty, an irrepressible grassroots group out of Seattle advocating against the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs. Back to top Mail Order Plants Way back at the beginning of this Gifts For Gardeners tome, I suggested a gift certificate to a nursery. If you’ve got a good one in your area, I urge you to support it. If not, or if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, here’s a few of my favorite mail order nurseries (with a decidedly Northwest prejudice. So sue me!):   The Bamboo Garden Brent and Becky's Bulbs Brothers Herbs And Peonies Collector’s Nursery Colvos Creek Nursery Cricket Hill Garden: Peony Heaven Digging Dog Nursery Forestfarm Gossler Farms Nursery, Springfield, OR. -- (541) 746-3922 Greer Gardens, Inc. Heirloom Roses Heronswood Nursery Joy Creek Nursery Niche Gardens Plant Delights Nursery, Inc. Prairie Nursery Roslyn Nursery Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery Swan Island Dahlias White Flower Farm Back to top Listening to audio requires the RealAudio player   Copyright © 2003 National Public Radio, Washington, D.C.