I still don't have the Mineo book, but I did get two other books today, both of them used copies from Amazon. "Lewisias" by B. LeRoy Davidson: a wealth of information and lots of luscious photos, line drawings, and paintings. The other is "Rock Gardens; The New York Botanical Garden," part of "The Serious Gardener" series. It is also profusely illustrated and contains useful information about planting, watering, making hypertufa troughs, etc., including some illustrated step-by-step instructions.
Please share info on your favorite alpine and rock garden books, as well as cautionary info to steer us all away from books that aren't worth the price.
Read any good books lately?
Rock Garden Design and Construction by Timber Press is a very good book organized by the North American Rock Garden Society. As mentioned, Mineo's book Rock Garden Plants is also highly recommended. Alpine, the Illustrated Dictionary by Tmber Press is NOT such a great book in my opinion as there is no info on hardiness and the pics are not very good. Rock Garden Plants of North America, by Timber Press and again organized by the North Ameruican Rock Garden Society is also excellent for info on native American alpines. For specific books, Robert Nold's Columbines and Penstemons is good. Fritz Kohlein's Iris, Gentians and Saxifrage books are also useful additions to any rock garden enthusiasts library. Mary Robinson's Primulas covers the primroses well and although it has no pictures or info on hardiness, Ingwersen's Manual of Alpine Plants does describe species not often covered in other books. Lewis and Lynch Campanulas is also excellent. There is currently a new Campanula book being written which looks to be even better.
Wow, I need that gentian book. One of the books that disappointed me was Peter Ward's "Primroses and Auriculas." It concentrates so heavily on auriculas that there's almost no information about other kinds of primula. Another was David Joyce's "Rock Gardens & Alpine Plants." The illustrations look washed out. Not enough color. Ironically, it's part of the "Garden Color Series."
My current favorite, most probably soon to be displaced by the Mineo book is "Rock Garden Plants"--one of the volumes of the "Eyewitness Garden Handbooks" series. Detailed information about 450 rock garden plants, more than 500 illustrations, and a nice price of about $5.00 used on Amazon. It includes hardiness, height, spread, sun-shade and watering requirements, and lots of other info.
Ogden Tanner's "Rock and Water Gardens," a Time-Life book, has invaluable instructions on moving rocks without breaking your back, creating a "tower of tufa," and making your own glacial moraine.
Some of my favorites are:
Best Rock Garden Plants
by Stefan Buczacki (Hamlyn )
*Not a large book, but very detailed descriptions including Flowering season, size @ maturity, lists of recommended varieties, and place of origin. Does not include hardiness zone info....
Creating and Planting Alpine Gardens
(How to build small rock gardens and work with alpine plants)
Rex Murfitt (B. B. Mackey Books)
This book is BRAND new, just out in the last month...very informative....my house is a mess because I can't seem to put it down. More info on it is at www.mackeybooks.com
Chapters include - Building a rock garden, building a raised bed, handling and planting alpines in containers, Herbaceous rock garden plants, woody and semi-woody , bulbs, and dwarf conifers, shrubs, and trees for the rock garden,etc, etc ..... SUPERB!!! Look at the plant on the cover....so neat!! :)
The Practical Rock & Water Garden
Peter Robinson (Hermes House)
This is much more about the rock garden as used w/ water features large and small. Good info on many, many variations on that theme. If you are wanting any type of water element with your Rock Garden - a must read!!
The Gardener's Guide to Growing....
Fritillaries
Kevin Pratt & Michael Jefferson-Brown (Timber Press)
These books in this series are all informative, I have several others( Hardy Geraniums, Lilies, Penstemon........) and all are good, basic books on the Genus they are covering
Design in the Plant Collector's Garden
-from chaos to beauty
Roger Turner (Timber Press) www.timberpress.com
Another new book....just released and very informative. So many of us that are Rock Gardening are also collector's of many plants. This book may not be about Rock Gardening per se, but it is wonderful at helping one show off all their choice, wonderful, cherished plants. And the pictures....Oh My....WOW!!
The Collectors Garden
-designing with extraordinary plants
Ken Druse (Timber Press)
Simialar to the above, AHS Award Winner, an absolute feast for the eyes...and the soul. I have rarely enjoyed a book as thoroughly, or as frequently!!
The Plant Hunters Garden
-the new explorers and their discoveries
Bobby J. Ward (Timber Press)
If you love to know the newest, coolest, most recently introduced plants, and have some of them, end up in your garden...this is one book you will drool over for hours!! Each chapter profiles one of the men and women who travel the globe to bring us the amazing new plants we buy &/or order....
I have never put as many post it note book marks in a book before, I seemed to want every single one of these plants.
Enough for now....Happy reading,
Jamie
Jamie, you're back. How nice!
The plant on the cover of the Murfitt book is truly remarkable. Looks good enough to eat.
If everyone will bear with me, I'm thinking of reviewing just one of my rock garden books each day in this thread. Trying to keep the numbers up so we won't lose this forum for lack of postings.
Zuzu,
Hi there! Yes, I am back. I was knocked flat by the flu, I don't think I have ever been so sick....miserable!! And now one of my kiddos has it, not fun.
The plant on the cover is called Sepervivum octopodes, and it fits!! I really hope I can find one this year.
I have not gotten my Eyewitness book yet either. Maybe we will both get the books we are waiting for on Monday...
Have a Happy Easter!
Jamie
I have a feeling there won't be any mail at all on Monday. It might be a holiday. Love the picture.
I didn't realize Rex's book was out....I'll have to order that one. I've corresponded with Rex on several occasions...he's a real Sax freak! I sent him a plant of Newfoundland's own variety of Saxifraga paniculata...he was thrilled as he had read about ours but never dreamed of having one. I've met Bobby Ward and I have his book as well. He is actually coming to our rock garden conference this summer. Both Rex and Bobby are really nice people.
I checked for Fritz Kohlein's books on Amazon. Unfortunately, they're a little too rich for my blood. The book on gentians is about $40 for a used copy and the one on saxifrages is a whopping $108.33 for a used paperback copy. Oddly enough, there's a used hardcover copy for under $50, but it's still a little too steep so I'll keep looking.
WOW! I can't believe the prices for those books. I paid about $25-30 brand new when I got them about 10 years ago. They must be becoming collectors items. Lucky me!
Lucky you is right. At this rate of appreciation, you might be able to retire in comfort just by selling your books.
On a completely unrelated subject, I just sent a response to someone in another forum, suggesting a remedy for motion sickness and sympathizing with her inability to travel long distances to plant fairs, confessing to my own long-time habit of lighting up and inhaling those things that come 20 to a pack. I'm deliberately avoiding the exact word because I immediately received a message instructing me to avoid obscenities and vulgarities. I checked the message over several times to see whether I had made a typo that could be construed as something vulgar, but there was nothing there. Is the DG acceptable use policy so extreme that it precludes the use of that word? I know this doesn't belong in this thread, but I don't want to start a new thread for this purpose.
Today's book is Louise Beebe Wilder's "Pleasures and Problems of a Rock Garden." It's a collection of twenty-eight essays about rock gardens in general and alpine plants in particular. The illustrations are black and white drawings.
Although I can appreciate the literary merits of this work, it is not one of my favorites due to my personal bias, admittedly infantile, in favor of pictures in living color.
Zuzu,
I can't for the life of me imagine what that was all about either...maybe you could send a copy of your post to Admin and ask, as I would want to know if it were me! How odd, and all you were doing was trying to help...
Back to the books - Todd, let me know what you think of Rex Murfitts book. I would be interested in another persons thoughts as no one else has read it yet...:o)
My book for today is :
The Rock Garden Month-by-Month
by Michael Jefferson-Brown & Michael Upward
(David & Charles Pub.)
This is simply one of the coolest little books I have come across for the not yet expert Rock Gardener like myself. Todd, you may find it a bit simple...:) but it taught me an amazing amount of information. From the lists of plants for each season, to the lists for things like shade tolerant plants, lime haters, and those that can be grown in walls well, and plants to propagate w/ stem cuttings vs. root cuttings and many, many more. I refer to these lists often as these details are sometimes hard to find in the literature. The Index of plants gives amazing pictures of most, if not all entries. And the photography is stunning!! I have searched long and hard for a plant based on its pic in this book...LOL :)
It is set up by months, with a project and several plant picks for each month, as well as a complete description of what to do for maintenance and care in the Rock and Alpine Garden each month of the year. Very user-friendly, and so easy to look things up in.
I have used this book so much it is dog-eared, has soil on several pages from being out to the garden with me, or from being dragged to another nursery to find this plant, or that variety...I could not recommend it more!!
Jamie
Wow, Jamie, I love your little lithodora, and what is the name of that huge mystery clump?
As for the other matter, I suspect admin already has a copy of my post. Whatever triggered the obscenity warning probably transmitted the item straight to admin.
A California gardening forum was created the same day as this forum, so I've been quite busy in DG. There are some interesting topics there, but maybe you've already perused them.
Contrary to my expectations, we did get mail today, and mine included a new and much better book on primulas: "A Plantsman's Guide to Primulas," by Philip Swindells. Color pictures and info on many, many different varieties, including Capitata and Cockburniana, which are often overlooked in these books. Several beautiful pictures of primula marginata.
I love Lithodora but they are not reliable in Newfoundland...I started with one your size Jamie and by the end of the summer, it had grown like a wave, drowning everything it it's path! Yet, the plant died back to the roots in winter...since our nurseries sell them regularly, I now grow it as an annual.
There's a new Lithodora called "Star" that's exquisite. Forest Farm only had it in the gallon size, and when I looked for it in a smaller size I happened upon the Siskiyou Website, which then led to my decision to start growing alpines. Ironically, Siskiyou was all out of "Star" and I never did get it, but it's just beautiful. It looks like "Grace Ward" but with each flower outlined in white. Something like Omphalodes "Starry Eyes" but with a more dramatic contrast. I'll look for "Star" locally for a while and then I'll have to break down and get the gallon from Forest Farm. I hate to pay for the shipping on a gallon can, though, especially for something with such shallow roots.
I'm experimenting with lithodora oleifolia for the first time this year. It's pretty, but it must be more difficult to grow because the local nurseries don't carry it.
Today's book is Will Ingwersen's "Alpines & Rock Plants," which focuses heavily on Great Britain in the cultivation info. It does have some interesting chapters on some of my favorites, including primulas, campanulas, and saxifrages, and useful lists of the best plants for different types of soils and environments. It has about a dozen color photos and 50 line drawings. It is a useful book, but not one of the ones I peruse with pleasure.
I usually prefer books with many color photos, but this is such a useful and informative one that I can give up that bias temporarily. It's "The Complete Book of Alpine Gardening," by Richard Bird and John Kelly.
It's my most comprehensive guide to alpine gardening. It's divided into sections on plants grown outside, cultivation in an alpine house or under a cloche, growing methods and conditions, and an alphabetical list of alpine plants, with descriptions, diagrams, some color photos, and detailed information on the diagnosis and prevention of pests and diseases.
Amazon is delaying delivery of the Mineo book again, saying it can't be shipped until the middle of April. I really wish I had bought a used copy. It would have arrived long ago.
My book today is "Saxifrages - and related genera" by Fritz Kohlen. Todd recommended this book to me a while back, but the used ones on amazon were $150.00 - $199.00. There are no new ones as it is 20 or so years old and no longer being reprinted by Timber Press. So I waited, and watched my favorite used Horticultural book sites...and found one for less than $45 dollars, and GRABBED it before Zuzu got there first...LOL :) Just kidding Zuzu!
It is definitely a book I needed. I love Sax. and keep ordering more of them from all these wonderful Alpine & Rock gardening nurseries we keep discussing, and now I can take care of all my new babies the way they need to be cared for. I LOVE this book. Every question I had was answered and I imagine that will be true for some time. The culture info is so wonderful - and as these nurseries can't really tell you what each and every plant ordered needs, they expect us to get that info..and now I can!!
Thanks Todd for the recomendation! Great Book!
Happy Gardening!
Lucky duck!
Today's book is "Rock Plants for Small Gardens" by Royton E. Heath. This book is useful because it lists and describes more than 1,000 plants, with information on height and spread, type of soil, position and protection, color and season of bloom, and propagation methods. The information is easily accessible because it's in charts, so there's no need to read through the descriptions of all the plants to find the ones that hate winter wet, for instance, or need protection from drying winds. Some color photos, many black-and-white photos.
Jamie, I agree with you about Buczacki's book. I really like it, especially because he makes everything sound so easy. It's very encouraging.
I have Rex Murfitts book on Planting Troughs ordered...should be here within the week. I'll let you know what I think. Rex is coming to our Rock Garden Conference this summer so I can get him to autograph my copy. He's also bringing me a bunch of rooted silver saxifrages from his own collection! He has some very obscure ones from the UK where silver saxifrage is King! I'll post pics when they arrive.
Today's book is "Rock Gardening" by Charles O. Cresson, part of the Burpee (stop your snickering; don't be a snob) American Gardening Series. It's a large-format paperback, only 96 pages, but it has detailed instructions for the design and construction of rock gardens, cold frames, alpine houses, dry walls, etc.
Copiously illustrated in full color with some really beautiful photographs of individual plants and whole gardens.
It illustrates some ingenious methods of growing crevice plants, using various other materials if rock is scarce.
Rex Murfitts book on alpine trough construction and planting arrived today. The book has good and bad points. The quality of the paper is not up to snuff and most pictures are black and white. There are some colour pictures as a grouping in two places but some are a bit blurry. The info however, is great. So its a book for the serious trough grower but not a coffee-table book.
Two books today because I missed a day or two. Will Ingwersen's "Manual of Alpine Plants" does not have a single picture, except for a lovely gentian on the cover, but it is a comprehensive source of information, with extensive descriptions: seven pages of small type on different varieties of Androsace, for example.
In contrast, Alan Bloom's "Garden Alpines" is almost nothing but pictures and contains very little information.
Books to match your mood: one for learning and one for dreaming.
Yippeee, the Mineo book, the coffee-table book of all coffee-table books, just arrived so I probably will be virtually incommunicado for a few days.
The mail also brought me Alan Bloom's "Alpines for Your Garden," which is simply an earlier and somewhat inferior edition of his "Garden Alpines." The text is the same, the selection of pictures is slightly different, and the colors in the photos are all washed out.
Oh no...Zuzu got her new favorite book, and we won't hear from her for a few days....LOL ;o) I guess I will have to go get a book to talk about for today....
The pleasure of Gardening:
Rock & Alpine Gardening -a complete practical guide
-by Mary Moody (Lansdowne Publishing)
One of the few books on Rock gardening that I own written by a woman, nice to see! Also this was also my very first book an the subject, at the time I was basically thrilled to have a book on my new favorite type of gardening, and I thought it was the just best book, and I read it over and over before I discovered e-Bay, and Amazon.com and bought every book on the subject that was under $20...and several that weren't.....LOL!
This book still is a good one though, even after I have read dozens on the subject. It covers many styles and sizes of Rock Gardens, from one little trough, to an elaborate Alpine house, a small raised bed, to a 1/4 acre hillside covered in these plants. And for each type of plan, the author gives one detailed planting scheme so you can get a feel for what plants do well in which situation - very helpful! The photos are wonderful, and varied. Thw text well-written and easy to understand. Over-all a well-written introduction to Rock Gardening. Two thumbs up....:)
Well, I certainly got sidetracked after getting the Mineo book, which is superb.
Most of the rest of the books in my rock gardening library have already been mentioned by others, particularly Mary Moody's book, which earned a well-deserved positive review from Jamie.
The only others I have that no one has mentioned yet are "Rock Gardens," part of the Arrowsmith Gardener's Guide series. It has good descriptions of a variety of rock garden plants, with black-and-white drawings of each, and some nice color illustrations in the general section on the history of rock gardens. It has a mail-order directory that is regrettably outdated (the edition I have was published in 1990).
H. Lincoln Foster's "Rock Gardening" is subtitled "A Guide to Growing Alpines and Other Wildflowers in the American Garden" and it is just that, complete with a glossary, information on planting, maintenance, and propagation, and a 350+-page descriptive catalogue of plants, bulbs, ferns, trees, and shrubs. Many illustrations, none in color.
Doretta Klaber's "Rock Garden Plants: New Ways To Use Them Around Your Home" is interesting because it explains how plants traditionally grown in rock gardens can also be grown in more intimate surroundings--small flower beds, containers, small sand beds, and short walls.