Even this late in the year, it’s still awfully hot to be working outside, so step inside and gather ideas from these new gardening books.
Well, it’s that time of year again, when it’s just Too Bleeping Hot to work outside. Time to congratulate yourself on the gardening projects you’ve started and enjoy the results! And it’s a great time to be re-inspired and get ideas for new projects or plantings by reading new books about gardening.
Two terrific books focused on preserving our ecosystems have come out this year: Climate-Wise Landscaping by Sue Reed and Ginny Stibolt; and Transforming Florida Yards by Amanda Pike. All three authors share their extensive knowledge of plant ecology and offer great suggestions on battling climate issues and preserving food security in your own yard.
Stibolt is an expert on gardening and as a Floridian is able to focus on some of the challenges and advantages we have here when it comes to growing plants. Reed is a professional landscape architect and her design background helps readers envision a cohesive and planet-assisting yard.
Climate-Wise Landscaping offers advice and tools so that “landscapes are capable of sustaining the biodiversity that runs the ecosystems,” they write. “There simply isn’t enough Nature left to blithely pass this responsible offer to Her.”
The projects and suggestions focus on shrinking our carbon footprints with careful landscape choices and gardening along with supporting birds, butterflies, pollinators and other wildlife. They emphasize the need for biodiversity—having a variety of plants, flowers, animals and trees that support nature. And they decry the monocultures of traditional suburban turf lawns and non-native plants species that require more care and attention and often get doused with chemicals and poisons to sustain them in an un-natural way. (I’m looking at you, tropical hibiscus! You’re pretty, but you don’t belong here.)
In fact, the first chapter of the book is about lawns and they posit radical reduction of lawn spaces in your yard and using meadows instead when possible.
Later chapters focus on trees, water usage, native plants, soil, urban gardens and food. I thought the most interesting chapter was about water and the authors’ ideas, photos and suggestions for preserving the enormous volume of rainfall we get from May to September.
“In general, one inch of rain on 1,000 square feet of impervious surface produces 623 gallons of water,” they write. That’s a huge amount of water to be potentially saved and used for landscape and garden irrigation instead of pumping it out of our aquifer. Water collections systems can be as elaborate as 250-gallon buried cisterns with a pump system or as simple as classic rain barrels. They also suggest building purposeful rain gardens and swales to direct and control water.
Another title focuses on growing food in your yard. Transforming Florida Yards author Amanda Pike writes about food security while creating beauty and bounty in your landscape. With its focus on Florida, her tips resonate and make the suggestions feel really do-able and likely to succeed.
Chapters cover topics like the advantage of perennial plants, fast-growing food plants and suggestions for each season of the year. She also discusses ethics and zones, with a caution about invasive plants.
She also advises to start out with “Level 1” plants, those that are fairly easy to grow, have few pests and diseases, and have high wildlife value. Her suggestion is to buy those from a grocer (preferably organic if possible), eat them and then replant them. Many food plants can be re-grown this way including tomatoes, sweet potatoes, pineapple, shallots, basil, rosemary and mint. (My experimental sweet potato patch has kinda turned into a perennial to my surprise. I planted some organic ones in 2019 and, well, they just keep coming back after I harvest each November. And the vines are pretty too!)
She also lists out Level 2 and Level 3 plants that need more skill and knowledge to grow or have minor health cautions. For example, she mentions that mango trees are related to the poison ivy family and that some people have an allergic reaction to them.
In addition, one appendix is a design reference table that lists out in an easy-to read format, the growing conditions required, the correct layer in the landscape, the time of year for germination, the level of difficulty/cautions and when to harvest. So, sweet potatoes are listed as needing at least partial sun, seasonally wet growing conditions, it’s a tuber vine and is harvested in fall/winter.
If you’re ready from a break from the gardening chores, read one of these books to whet your appetite for new projects in the yard. OS
A native Floridian and lifelong gardener, Belea spends her time off fostering cats and collecting caladiums. You can send gardening questions or column suggestions to her at belea@magnoliamediaco.com
