Book Could Be Gift Answer
Hint, hint . . . a gardener can always use a good book, especially at this time of the year. It’s the perfect gift when the days are short and nights indoors are so long.
Visit a bookstore and you’ll find no shortage of garden books on the shelves, but note that precious few are practical for Californians, who eventually tire of looking dreamily at lush English or Eastern landscapes spread across several acres.
“Hey,” we should say to the proprietors, “ever hear of California, or the drought?” Fortunately, there are those few practical books that are also new enough not to already be in a gardener’s collection.
“Pat Welsh’s Southern California Gardening” (Chronicle Books; $19.95) is one of the best. Beginning gardeners--those still trying to figure out which way is down on a ranunculus tuber--will find help here. Perhaps all the help they need, because Welsh leaves few stones unturned and is very precise in her directions, with recipes, brand names, and specific strains or varieties of plants that work in our climate. The book is arranged by season--it’s subtitle is “A Month-by-Month Guide”--which should be a great help to beginners or newcomers who have trouble knowing when to do what.
Because she is so precise, experienced gardeners will have fun comparing notes with Welsh, and they are sure to find more than a few tips they haven’t run across before. For instance, she suggests enlisting the help of scrub jays in the battle against tomato hornworms, by nailing a tuna can on top of the tomato stake and stocking it with a few peanuts, in the hope that the jays will also notice the juicy, peanut-sized caterpillars down below.
This book is completely up to date and is perhaps the first book to mention recent pests like the eugenia psyllid or ash white fly (it suggests controls). It’s too bad that the cover is made from an annoying paper that curls up like a leafroller larva was inside, because gardeners are going to get a lot of use out of this book, and that flimsy cover is going to bug them.
“Pests of the West” by Whitney Cranshaw (Fulcrum Publishing; $18.95) includes the fruit-tree leafroller and a great many other pests, though the Colorado author includes the Rocky Mountains as part of the “West,” which introduces quite a few critters not found in California, and excludes some common here, such as the eugenia psyllid or ash white fly.
Still, you can never know too much, or have too many books, about your garden adversaries, and Cranshaw does a fine job of describing the habits of many garden pests common in California.
This trained entomologist also does an admirable job of suggesting biological or natural controls for the various creatures, diseases and weeds discussed, including hollyhock rust that makes it so difficult to grow these storybook flowers, the X-disease (honestly, that’s its name) that kills peaches, the stubborn wild morning glory that effectively resists all herbicides (but it can be starved), or the night-raiding cutworms (he describes quite a few kinds).
“Shade and Color with Water Conserving Plants” by James E. Walters and Balbir Backhaus (Timber Press; $39.95) is as timely a book as you can get and an excellent encyclopedia of unthirsty plants, with 300 species and cultivars described (200 of which are illustrated in color). Though there is some good general advice at the front of the book, the plant descriptions are particularly useful and include the height and width of each plant, as well as its culture (and even if it is deer proof).
Many of the newer cultivars of familiar plants are included, such as Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’ or the ground covering coyote bush named ‘Centennial’. Both of the authors have a lot of experience with drought tolerant plants and while one is a Californian, the other is from Phoenix, so this book will work in all of Southern California’s varied climates, from the Central Valley to the low desert (only the high mountains get left out).
Timber Press books are hard to find at bookstores, but they are available directly from the publisher by calling (800) 327-5680.
“Drip Irrigation” by Robert Kourik (Metamorphic Press; $12) can tell you how to water thirsty or unthirsty plants. This is a much needed book on a complicated subject. Kourik has a lot of experience with drip in California and it shows. Gardeners should like the chapter on hiding a drip system, since many see this as its drawback, and container gardeners will find a whole chapter devoted to their special dilemmas. There are plenty of drawings and charts and every subject, including how long to leave the water on, is covered. If we are indeed heading into yet another year of drought, this book might make the difference in your garden because drip systems are a proven water saver, even if you change nothing else in your garden plan.
Like many practical garden books, it will probably not be found at bookstores, but it is available from the publisher at PO Box 1841, Santa Rosa, CA, 95402, (707) 874-2606, for $16.93, which includes tax and postage.
