A Variety of Books Blooms on Shelves
For the gardener, it is now the serious reading season, at least until the bare-root rose season begins in January, the fall planting season having pretty much passed. It is getting cold and dark so early that reading about gardening under a good strong light is about all one can do. And with Christmas on the way, you might consider books as gifts for gardeners.
“The Gardens of San Francisco” by Joan Hockaday, with photographs by Henry Bowles (Timber Press: $39.95), is especially interesting, because it includes not only private gardens but also public ones as well. Some are little known, such as the Filbert Street Steps, a romantic public stairway up the side of Telegraph Hill, planted its entire length and bordered by tiny hillside cottage gardens.
San Francisco Gardens
The beginning of the book explores the sometimes-tumultuous history of San Francisco gardens, and how hillside and sand dunes were conquered. The last section looks at 23 private gardens, and they are a diverse lot. There is an impeccably maintained Thomas Church garden on Russian Hill and a garden in splendid ruins by Sutro Forest; gardens on rooftops in Presidio Heights and on balconies in the new crop of downtown high-rises; old rose gardens and tropical gardens, and each is accompanied by a rough plan of the place.
Timber Press is an outfit worth knowing about because it probably publishes more books about gardens and gardening than any other house. It also sells direct, so these hard-to-find books can be ordered by writing Timber Press at 9999 S.W. Wilshire, Portland, Ore. 97225 for a catalogue.
Some of the books are exhaustive. If you like lilacs, “Lilacs, the Genus Syringa” by Father John L. Fiala (Timber Press; $59.95) is the only book you need own. True, it is impossible to grow all but a few special varieties here (developed by Descanso Gardens in La Cana-da), but this book is so definitive it makes fascinating reading anyway. And, it would make a perfect gift for an Eastern gardening friend after you finish browsing through it.
Some of the books are reprints, often brought up-to-date with back matter. The carefully researched “A History of Horticulture in America to 1860” by U. P. Hedrick (Timber Press: $39.95) was originally published in 1950, but now includes an addendum by horticultural bookseller Elisabeth Woodburn, listing horticultural books published from 1861-1920. This alone makes good reading and many of these early and often delightful publications are pictured.
Garden books, by the way, are suddenly quite collectible. Many of the Timber Press books are co-published and originate in another country. Recent releases of interest to Californians include “Miniature and Dwarf Geraniums” by English grower Harold Bagust, “Cacti for the Connoisseur” by British authority John Pilbeam and “Growing Succulent Plants” by Victor Graham.
Of more general interest is “American Gardens” by Peter Loewer (Simon & Schuster: $35), a tour of “the nation’s finest private gardens” and, refreshingly, it includes several California gardens, not just gardens of the East Coast.
Equally refreshing is “The American Gardener, A Sampler” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18.95), which is just plain good reading--but from American gardeners (not British), including Thomas Jefferson and Louise Beebe Wilder, Harland Hand and Mrs. Francis King, Andrew Jackson Downing and Roger Swain--on subjects ranging from the ubiquitous lawn and its merits to “Slug Boots” and “The Barbaric Scarlet of Tithonia.”
Perhaps the most useful of the new crop of books is not entirely new, but much revised. Sunset Magazine’s “Western Garden Book” (Lane Publishing: $14.95 paperback) has appeared in its fifth edition and can be recognized because it, oddly, is not called the “ New Western Garden Book.”
This is the first revision in 10 years and a lot has changed in gardening during that time. There are new sections on basic gardening that reflect the latest thinking on planting and the shape of planting holes (angle the sides outward, don’t dig too deep and don’t add amendments), new information on controls for pests and diseases (though you won’t find that new ash whitefly or the new eugenia psylid, or 20 chemicals no longer sold, there are eight new ones) and new information on watering and fertilizing (including a chart that suggests how long to water).
Encyclopedic Section
There are also a lot of plants listed for the first time in the encyclopedic section, including a number of shrubs, perennials and grasses that have recently become popular. Most of the plant descriptions now include information on how much water they need, and all now tell what family a plant belongs to. But as one gardener friend noted: “I get the feeling that they are not L.A. plants but Utah plants.”
Indeed, many of the plants are not those normally grown in Los Angeles but are there in recognition of the fact that Sunset now serves more than just the far, coastal West but also includes the rather different Rocky Mountain states, which somewhat dilutes the usefulness of the book.
For instance, one of the new plants is Pentas lanceolata , which is described as being “usually grown as an annual,” even though it is one of the fastest and most permanent small shrubs for coastal Southern California gardens. Still, many California plants will only be found in the “Western Garden Book,” and it remains our basic gardening reference. It replaces my rather battered and soiled “New Western Garden Book” and is where I turn first.
