I love to read and want to share what is on my table this winter:

Winterland by Cathy Rees has lots of color photos to demonstrate how to flesh out your home landscape at this coldest season of the year. Her accompanying text is down-to-earth and practical. I particularly like her mention of some of my favorite evergreen and workhorse ground covers: Hellebore, Big root Geranium, and Waldsteinia!

 

 

 

 

 

Claudia West’s book, Planting in a Post-Wild World, written with Thomas Rainer, has been sitting here mainly unread due to general busyness. I’m just dipping into it again. Here the emphasis is on creating layered plant communities, exactly what we at PBOG have been advocating for many years. Give up acres of mulch and fill your beds with plants of different heights, textures, and bloom times! I gain so much inspiration from walks in the wild, and Claudia has taken some great photos on her hikes in various seasons that can inform this type of planting.

 

 

 

Doug Tallamy’s writings, especially The Living Landscape with Rick Darke, expound on these themes even further. As an entomologist, Doug provides all the research behind insect-plant-animal interaction and why this is critical for our environment. Then Rick Darke provides the perfect picture and text to illustrate plantings in a landscape.