Passionate gardeners can find a way to garden, if only in their imaginations and dreams, all year long. If we can’t garden we can peruse catalogues and read books about gardening. Thanks to a generous donor, your library now has a great selection of new gardening books. We have also printed several gardening bulletins from the University of Wyoming Extension Service. These are also available for checkout. Start dreaming your way through winter today.
Organic gardening and permaculture are growing concerns as gardening is again increasing in popularity in the United States. Therefore we have purchased several new titles to help you grow organic food and keep your land in good condition. Grow Organic by Doug Oster is such a book. Grow Organic offers essential insights to help gardeners of all skill levels achieve their organic potential. Nine chapters include the lowdown on composting, companion planting, organic pest control, soil management and much more - with an invaluable Friends of the Organic Gardener source guide appendix.
The Organic Lawn Care Manual: a natural, low-maintenance system for a beautiful, safe lawn by Paul Boardway Tukey. Tukey, a self-confessed mowing addict, answers the growing demand for organic grass, grass that is safe for children and pets, with a comprehensive volume of natural lawn care information. Step by step, he takes readers through the many elements that work together to form a healthy, organic lawn.
The kind of organics has to be Rodale Press so take a look at this book: Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver : the best and latest advice for beating pests, diseases, and weeds and staying a step ahead of trouble in the garden by Fern Marshall Bradley. With the latest research, breakthroughs, and troubleshooting advice, Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver features hundreds of organic and natural solutions for tackling disease, pest, and weed problems. If deer devastate your plants this book can help.
We also have two new books on growing organically – Success with Organic Fruit and Success with Organic Vegetables, both by Yvonne Cuthbertson. Fruit is healthy; pesticides aren’t. One way to ensure that your produce is chemical-free is to grow it yourself. Gardeners seeking a concise, easy-to-follow approach to organic fruit cultivation need look no further. Organic gardening is all the rage, but successfully growing vegetables without pesticides and harsh chemical fertilizers requires care and knowledge. So look to Success with Organic Vegetables for that care and knowledge.
Perhaps you are just starting in gardening. You might want to check out How to Get Started in Rocky Mountain Gardening by Rob Proctor. This book gives you information, tips, and advice to succeed in creating a beautiful, healthy first garden. Here’s what you’ll find in this essential garden guide: An intro to the basics - soil, climate, water, planting, maintenance, and design, region-specific information for Rocky Mountain gardens, portraits of 50 foolproof plants ideal for growing in the Rockies, with full-color photos, troubleshooting information to help you cope with pests, invaders, and disease, and listings for retail and mail-order nurseries, local extension services, and helpful books.
So you have no room for a garden you say? Then take a look at The Edible Container Garden: growing fresh food in small spaces by Michael Guerra. No space is too small to grow delicious and healthy food. Enjoying tasty and fresh produce no longer requires a trip to the local farm stand or gourmet grocery. With The Edible Container Garden as your guide, everything from salad greens and savory herbs to luscious fruits and vegetables can be as close as your patio, balcony, or rooftop. The Edible Container Garden explains how to plant, grow, and harvest vegetables, edible flowers, fruits, and herbs, even when time and space are limited. We also have several other books on container gardening available.
Maybe you are tired of reading about gardening and want something a little lighter. How about giving The $64 Tomato by William Alexander a try. Who knew that Bill Alexander’s simple dream of having a vegetable garden and small orchard would lead him into life-and-death battles with webworms, weeds, and a groundhog named Superchuck? Over the course of his hilarious adventures, Alexander puzzles over why a six-thousand-volt wire doesn’t deter deer but nearly kills his tree surgeon; encounters a gardener who bears an eerie resemblance to Christopher Walken; and stumbles across the aphrodisiac effects of pollen when he plays bumble bee to his apple blossoms. When he decides (just for fun!) to calculate how much it cost to grow one of his beloved Brandywine tomatoes, he comes up with a staggering $64. But as any gardener knows, you can’t put a price tag on the rewards of homegrown produce, or on the lessons learned along the way.
Want to go even lighter? How about a gardening mystery? We have several authors to choose from including Susan Wittig Albert, Ann Ripley, Janis Harrison and Anthony Elgin. We also have a full selection of gardening books for children. We have gardening books that cover the range from beginner to expert, hopefully something for everyone. We have books on perennials, annuals, fruits, vegetables, containers, flowers, trees, xeric gardening, garden designing and landscaping.
We have a book entitled Tough Plants for Tough Places and another entitled Growing Perennials in Cold Climates. In fact in the Park County Library System we have 386 titles that come up in the card catalogue when you type in “gardening”. Our collection could keep you busy for an entire winter when you thought gardening was impossible. All things are possible when you come to the library.
Do you want to go native? We have 8 titles on growing native plants. Armitage’s Native Plants for North American Gardens by Allen M. Armitage is one of the 8. Armitage often writes columns for Fine Gardening Magazine and has appeared on The Victory Garden. Widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost horticulturists, Allan M. Armitage is a professor at the University of Georgia, Athens, where he teaches, conducts research on new garden plants, and runs the University of Georgia Horticulture Gardens. “The popularity of native North American plants has soared in recent years, for many good reasons. Gardeners and landscape professionals with a keen interest in the environment naturally turn to natives for their projects. Plant enthusiasts treasure them for their diversity, beauty, and adaptability. And countless other gardeners turn to them because they’re simply some of the best plants you can grow, regardless of where they come from.”
Maybe you just want to look at photos of beautiful gardens. The perhaps New Gardens in Provence: 30 contemporary creations by Louisa Jones will strike your fancy. Hundreds of arresting photographs capture Provence’s seductive allure, making this an intoxicating treat for armchair travelers as well as an enchanting resource for garden enthusiasts.
So if you are bored and tired of waiting for spring and gardening season to roll around, come to your library and read your way through winter enjoying your favorite subject. We guarantee we have enough variety to send your winter blahs sailing off with the next Chinook wind.
