A Way to Garden: a Hands-on Primer for Every Season by Margaret Roach
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults
Margaret Roach is a well-known and respected expert who has been gardening for decades. This book is an update of the 1998 edition, and contains excellent instructions for the home gardener, with emphasis on the importance of native plants and the dangers of invasive ones. Breathtaking photos of her gardens add to the beauty and appeal of this book.
Written and illustrated by Brian Lies
Format: Book
Who Its For: Kids
Have you ever had a super-good friend? Have you ever lost a friend? In The Rough Patch, Evan experiences both. Evan and his dog are best friends. They go everywhere and do everything together, in all weather, year in and year out. Their very favorite thing is working in Evan’s amazing garden, where they grow beautiful things to see and eat. Then one terrible day, Evan’s doggy friend dies. He is heart-broken, bitter, angry and alone. What will he do without his best friend? No longer able to stand the sight of their beautiful garden, when he feels so dark and sad inside, Evan chops it all down! He then turns his garden into the saddest, loneliest spot he can, a place that grows only terrible plants with thorns and bad smells, until the day a pumpkin vine creeps in under his fence. He begins to care for it and slowly, as it grows, he begins to remember happier times. That vine produces a HUGE pumpkin and Evan decides to enter it at the Fair, where at last he shakes off his darkness and, very unexpectedly, makes a new friend.
Gloriously illustrated by the multiple award winning author of Bats at the Beach, this is an honest and hopeful book about friendship, healing and the ways we deal with loss. A 2019 Caldecott Honor Book and an ALA Notable Book
The Grumpy Gardener: An A-Z Guide from Galaxy’s Most Irritable Green Thumb By Steve Bender
Format: Book
Who’s it for: Adults
If you are in the midst of planting your gardens, you will find the book, The Grumpy Gardener, a resource of helpful information with humor on the side. Steve Bender is full of knowledge in this new gardening book. I liked the arrangement, A-Z format with illustrations throughout. His wit and knowledge will give you solid tips in tackling; how to plant, pests like moles, squirrels and deer, disease and many other gardening issues that can occur.
Mr. Bender has a featured column each month in the Southern Living Magazine. Always addressing season to season planting needs.
I find myself always going to his column. An enjoyable, informational new gardening book.
“Great addition to any Southern library.” – Southern Living