Rhonda Nowak

“I’m not sure why it should be so, but there seems to be a strong and definite linkage between literature and gardening … Perhaps gardeners simply like to write, or at any rate like to read about gardening. One thing is certain: You won’t find anything to match it in the literature, of, say, stamp collecting.”

— Charles Elliott, 1997, in Nan Fairbrother’s “Men and Gardens,” originally published in 1956

Although I’ve never checked out the literature on stamp collecting, I agree with Charles Elliott, another, more recent, English gardener and writer who wrote the foreword for a reprinted edition of “Men and Gardens.” Elliott calls Nan Fairbrother’s book “one of the choicest examples of garden writing” because it’s “at least as much about the writing as it is about the gardening.”

I, too, count reading about gardens and gardening as one of my favorite pastimes. (I also love to write about gardens and gardening, except for those pesky deadlines.) Every year, I research and select a dozen garden-related books to apply to my gardening practices and to write about in my columns. Not all of the books for 2024 would meet either Elliott’s or Fairbrother’s criteria for “high” literature, but they all offer interesting insights about growing plants and most of them are entertaining to read.

I’ve noted which month I will be reading and discussing each book; I hope you will join me in exploring some of the wonderful world of garden literature.

January: “Seed to Table: A Seasonal Guide to Organically Growing, Cooking, and Preserving Food at Home” (2023). There are surprisingly few books that combine gardening with cooking and preserving, even though the three go hand-in-hand-in-hand for me and many other garden enthusiasts. Garden-to-table advocate and food blogger Luay Ghafari shares his knowledge and passion for organic gardening, preserving harvests, and preparing healthy meals with seasonal ingredients fresh from the garden.

February: “The Climate Change Garden: Down to Earth Advice for Growing a Resilient Garden” (2023). As politicians continue to argue over what to do about climate change, educators Sally Morgan and Kim Stoddart offer practical advice to help gardeners meet the challenges we are currently experiencing as temperature extremes become more common. The authors tell us, “Gardens take years to mature, so if our gardens have any chance of surviving the future climate in ten, twenty, thirty, or even eighty years, we need to start implementing plans for change right now.”

March: “Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style” (2016). I chose this book because I’m thinking about reimagining my front yard as a rock garden with more drought-tolerant plants. Author Joseph Tychonievich tells us rock gardens are coming back in style (did they ever leave?), in part, because rock garden plants are “the perfect answer to the chronic droughts that seem to be becoming the new normal in much of the American West and elsewhere.” The book features several beautiful rock gardens — including two right here in the Rogue Valley — and Tychonievich offers an extensive list of rock garden plants, as well as techniques for planting and growing them successfully.

April: “Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold: How to Manage Your Greenhouse Gardening Temperatures” (2023). I have a 12-foot-by-20-foot greenhouse and a 12-foot-by-40-foot  hoop house, and I would like to learn how to grow plants in them more successfully. My greenhouse, in particular, is underutilized because interior temperatures can soar past 100 degrees as early as May. Author Jessie Kelias gets into the nitty-gritty of greenhouse gardening as she offers 13 ways to protect greenhouse plants from scorching in the summer and freezing in the winter.

May: “Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers” (2023). I enjoyed reading Marta McDowell’s book “Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life” (2019), so I couldn’t resist adding her latest book to my list. McDowell explains why gardeners seem to love reading mysteries and playing detective: “Criminal investigation, whether vocation or avocation, calls for many of the same skills as horticulture” (such as keen observation and a penchant for gathering evidence). At the end of the book, McDowell offers an extensive list of horticultural mysteries dating from 1892 to 2022.

June: “Resilient Garden: Sustainable Gardening for a Changing Climate” (2023). I included another book about climate change because this one was written by a garden designer, Tom Massey, who has won awards for creating gardens that support wildlife and the local environment. I appreciate his optimism about the rise of resilient gardeners: “Fortunately, human beings have been capable of adapting since the dawn of time. … Now is the time for ingenuity, experimentation, grit, and determination.”

July: “Elizabeth and Her German Garden” (originally published in 1898). This is a 2023 reprint of the only book on my list for 2024 that’s been called classic garden literature. Author Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941) wrote a humorous memoir, dated like a diary, about her European garden and her gardening/writing life. The first words are: “I love my garden. I am writing in it now. … ” I think I’m going to really like this book and its author!

August: “This Wild Life: Heroines in the History of Botany 1650-1850” (2023). I’m excited to include local landscape designer Lucretia Weems’ book in which she tells the story of seven Anglo-European women who made significant contributions, either through their plant explorations in distant lands or their development of botanical knowledge. Weems writes, “To you leading ladies of bygone days, we gratefully bow. You lent your power and vision to the world of plants, and through your passion, patronage and gardens you shepherded the field of botany into being.”

September: “The RHS Book of Garden Verse” (2020). Originally published in 2003, this book is the Royal Horticultural Society’s celebration of the garden through poetry. The poems are grouped into six themed sections and are accompanied by beautiful illustrations from the RHS’s Lindley Library. Who does not adore the humble words of American poet Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) who famously wrote: “I think I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree/… Poems are made by fools like me/But only God can make a tree.”

October: “Spring Rain: A Life Lived in Gardens” (2023). This is a contemporary garden memoir by author Marc Hamer, which I thought would make a fine companion to Elizabeth von Armin’s 19th century memoir. Hamer tells us, “This is a story about the rain, a boy, an angry dog and a gardener and how some of them find peace and freedom.” I, too, am looking for peace and freedom in my garden, so I can’t wait to find out how Hamer found them (or maybe it was the angry dog?).

November: “Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival” (2023). I’m rounding out 2024 with two books about women gardeners. Alice Vincent’s journalistic book presents the flip side of Nan Fairbrother’s “Men and Gardens” by exploring why gardens have been so appealing to women. However, Vincent writes from the perspective of today’s female gardeners and tells us at the beginning that she was continually surprised by what they had to say. “These women and the conversations I had with them helped me to see my life differently, but they also helped me to see my garden differently.”

December: “Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden” (2023). I was interested in this book because author Camille T. Dungy is a professor at Colorado State University, my daughter’s alma mater. I became even more interested when I learned that the book is about Dungy’s struggle to diversify her garden despite planting restrictions imposed on her predominantly white Fort Collins neighborhood. For Dungy, developing gardens with an appreciation for biodiversity is an important example of a broader mindset that values diversity among humans, too.