Books to inspire green-thumb designs

REVIEWS BY DEANNA LARSON

The Ides of March is no match for cooped-up gardeners eager to get their fingers into still-frosty earth. A new crop of gardening books should provide fertile soil for spring ideas and plantings.

Gardens are like poems, and two of horticulture's best poets are George Little and Davis Lewis. These artist-gardeners have created a legendary Eden at their compound on Bainbridge Island, Washington, visited by thousands of pilgrims each year. The gorgeous photographs of their gardens in their first book, A Garden Gallery surprise, awe and thrill, like the best gardens should. Their quirky and beautiful concrete garden sculptures hide in lush and imaginative outdoor rooms that meld ancient Mediterranean, Mexican and tropical influences, and the pictures are accompanied by inventive text about gardening and living the Little and Lewis way. The pair describe their seasonal plans, present favorite plant lists and impart design advice including a wonderful section on water features. But it is their love affair with nature itself that is especially uplifting and lyrical: as they compare a leaf to an Egyptian boat; wax eloquently about their pomegranate sculpture recalling time spent in Greece; and identify the rhythms of light, sound, shape and color in nature, they "don't shy away from the whimsical" but allow instinct and imagination to flower, creating a paradise profound.


For gardeners who want to create their own piece of paradise, a good place to start is the massive American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants. This exhaustively comprehensive reference book features 15,000 plants—from new and exotic specimens to heirloom and garden favorites—listed alphabetically by botanical name (a common-name index is also provided for new gardeners). Full-color pictures and concise profiles of each plant written by horticultural specialists are enormously helpful planning tools. Hardiness and heat-zone maps, an extensive glossary and index round out this invaluable reference guide to all things that grow.


Those who run on impulse to the nearest garden supply center should pull up a lawn chair and plan first with New Complete Home Landscaping. This guide to designing and constructing landscape and hardscape elements is traditional in look and scope but packed with useful information. More than 950 photographs and watercolor illustrations help both novice and experienced gardeners tackle every possible building and planting project, from designing a landscape, improving soil and selecting trees, shrubs, lawns, flowers, vegetables and herbs to utilizing accents such as gazebos and building structures such as walls, fences, walkways, decks, patios, ponds and pools. Projects are rated for difficulty and sections on natural and chemical pest control, rejuvenating an existing landscape and templates to solve common landscaping problems make this book a must-have gardener's reference.


Gardens look most natural when they complement a house style rather than fight it. In Homescaping: Designing Your Landscape to Match Your Home, garden writer Anne Halpin explores the design relationship between classic garden types and common residential architecture styles. Halpin helps homeowners coordinate house and garden with advice on choosing patios, decks, walls, lighting, outdoor structures, furniture and water features that echo a home's personality. She also recommends key plants that signal each garden "feel," including formal, desert and meadow.


After the garden plans have been drawn, build one of the final fires of the season and curl up with The Garden of Reading, a collection of short fiction about gardens edited by Michele Slung. This appealing anthology of stories by some of the America's best-loved writers, including James Thurber, Stephen King, Sandra Cisneros, Eudora Welty, Jane Smiley and Garrison Keillor, will inspire daydreams featuring sunshine, acres of fresh soil and a handful of seeds.


Deanna Larson is a writer in Nashville who describes herself as a journeyman gardener.

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