Gift-giving time is nigh — our nights are longer, our jackets are warmer, and our gardens are enjoying a well-deserved rest of their own.
Three excellent gardening books may arouse her reading interest. The first, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust, does not offer suggestions about what to plant where. Instead, it explains how to care for what is already in your garden — how to care for it very, very well. Its A-Z encyclopedia of plant care includes discussions of each perennial’s needs — from deadheading and pruning to sunlight and soil drainage. With entries from Acanthus spinosus to Viola odorata, every gardening enthusiast will find something of value in this helpful book.
Three excellent gardening books may arouse her reading interest. The first, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust, does not offer suggestions about what to plant where. Instead, it explains how to care for what is already in your garden — how to care for it very, very well. Its A-Z encyclopedia of plant care includes discussions of each perennial’s needs — from deadheading and pruning to sunlight and soil drainage. With entries from Acanthus spinosus to Viola odorata, every gardening enthusiast will find something of value in this helpful book.
A second book idea is Noah’s Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Back Yards, by Sara Stein. In this very readable book, Stein details her conversion from a high-style conventional gardener trying to do everything right to an ecologically-informed nature lover. She explains why (and how) we need to transcend many of our older gardening concepts and help our own back yards become places of plenty again — plenty of wild berries, songbirds, and native plants.
The third recommended book is an academic look at the ordering and naming of flora, from the 3rd century BCE to the publication of Linnaeus’s Species plantarum in 1753. The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants, by Anna Pavord, will engage the interest of everyone interested in the history of plants–a history which includes far more intrigue and danger than you might think!
And if you don’t want to go all out with a book, there are other suggestions. Two last-minute ideas come to mind: a 12-month subscription to a gardening magazine, such as Horticulture.
And, last but not least, for the gardener who has everything — including aches and pains from all of that kneeling, digging and deadheading - perhaps a gift certificate for a one-hour massage, where those aches and pains can be gently rubbed away and replaced with oooohs and aaaahs.