More great garden books

Are you looking for an outstanding garden book, one that's a keeper and you refer to over and over?

I asked some of my fellow garden writers to recommend the best garden books they read last year. (Click here to read the first part of this discussion, which is filled with even more recommendations.)

Mentors in the garden and in life

“My favorite is ‘Mentors in the Garden of Life’ by Colleen Plimpton ($16.95, paperback, Park East Press)," says Martha Stoodley, who blogs at All the Dirt on Gardening.

“It is a series of short stories about family, friends, life, plants, and how they all tie together over the course of a lifetime. Really, it's soulful and delicious.”

If you’d like to see what others think, Martha also provided a link to the Amazon reviews of “Mentors in the Garden of Life.”

And here’s a You Tube video of Colleen reading from the book.

Dan Clost, who writes the Good Earth column for a Canadian newspaper and is the author of “Take Time: Reflections for Gentle Reader,” also recommends “Mentors in The Garden of Life.” In fact, he calls it his “favorite read” of the year.

" ‘Mentors in the Garden of Life’ is different from any gardening book I have read,” he says. “The pages are filled with the people who colored Colleen's life with the love of gardening. This is a testimony that graces the folks who passed on gardening knowledge, mostly, to her from the earliest days 'til present.

“One of Colleen's abilities is the knack of bringing these people to life, so much so that their personages form in your mind so clearly that you might have a conversation with them.”

'Thoughtful Gardening'

Along with several writers in yesterday’s post, Carolyn Ulrich, editor of Chicagoland Gardening magazine, recommends “Robin Lane Fox's book “Thoughtful Gardening” (Basic Books, $29.95). “His short essays are interesting, informative, and based on 40 years of gardening, writing, and traveling to gardens around the world,” she says.

“While I was taken aback by his negative opinions of some environmentalists and organic gardeners, I think he is mainly reacting to starry-eyed enthusiasm that can be based more on wishful thinking than evidence. The book is ‘thoughtful,’ and it does encourage us all to think more cogently about our own positions.”

Click here to see a wonderful video of Mr. Fox’s garden and hear him talk about gardening.

Shrubs and vines for your garden

“As someone who has purchased shrubs from the Gosslers [Gossler Farms Nursery] for probably close to two decades, I loved their first book, "The Gossler Guide to the Best Hardy Shrubs: More than 350 Expert Choices for Your Garden" by Roger Gossler, Eric Gossler and Marjory Gossler (Timber Press, $34.95),” says Betty Earl, who regularly blogs here at Diggin’ It.

“For all those years, I have enjoyed their casual, but always information-laden catalogs. So I was thrilled when these very practical, experience driven descriptions gleaned in the catalogs were expanded to their 350 favorite shrubs, in book form,” she says.

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