Is it me? Or are gardening books just getting worse?

28 Jan '07 9:11 pm

I've probably poked a hornet's nest with this post.

A glance in my warmest greenhouse yesterday (it's kept frost-free is all) and it looks as if my third Prostanthera is heading for that great compost heap in the sky. I love the Eucalypt-like scent of their foliage which I reckon would cure any blocked sinus! Anyway. I read that Prostanthera are supposedly frost hardy/half hardy so they should have no problem surviving my greenhouse in winter. Which, after my meandering introduction leads me to the subject of this post.

Since I started this gardening thing in 1999 here at Winsford Walled Garden, I've read many, many gardening books. During that time I have noticed a definite increase in the number of glossy images and a decline in the amount of actual content for which I originally purchased the book. Have I been seeing things I ask myself? Don't get me wrong I have also drooled and slobbered over a particularly rich border view. But all the same, I have been having increasingly serious doubts about the validity of an increasing number of gardening books and in particular their written content. Have you?

There are many image libraries on the net, add sites like Flikr to the total and it's easy to appreciate there is no shortage of good plant and garden photos. That's the easy part. But actually obtaining a plant, growing it and nurturing it to mature elegance, that's not so easy. That takes time, skill and a sprinkle of good fortune to achieve.

Continuing that train of thought, nowadays when I'm glancing through the forward of a new garden book with a view to purchasing I ask myself one question. Is there any evidence here that shows the author has actually dirtied their fingers and grown the plant their book contains?

Sound crazy? Not really, unless the forward shows that an author has worked for several years at Kew or some such place the book remains on the shelf. My point is this. How can a city-based author, probably living in a town house or a flat with awindow box, have any experience growing the thousands of plants contained in their book? All too often I have read and re-read the same cultivation details for a plant in so many 'new wave' gardening books, and those details are so obviously incorrect to anyone who has actually grown the plant.

I've had these thoughts for some time now and just occaisionally I voice them to a garden vistor in conversation. I'll never forget one elderly lady who once responded, "funny you should say that." Then went on to explain that she was the mother of a celebrity chef, who had earned a fortune with his books, and who had only ever cooked about 5% of his recipes.

I was stunned at the time. But it did help to explain the countless number of times when I had meticulously followed a recipe and the dish was either burnt to a crisp or nowhere near edible. Food for thought?

29 Jan '07 2:45 am

I also think that the more books you own, the choosier you become... as my collection now runs to over 5m of shelf space, I seldom find anything new, despite being a compulsive frequenter of secondhand bookshops (where I look out for the older books mostly, rather than the new glossies) And luckily I started my collection when the rand was worth a lot more to the pound than it is now...

Perhaps we should start a questionnaire:
1) What is your most valued gardening book?
2) Which book has influenced you the most?
3) Which is your most beautiful gardening book?
4) ?

No more than 3 books per category!

I would need to take these questions home with me to do justice to my answers...

29 Jan '07 4:27 am

I think the beginning of the book-rot started with commercial plant picture libraries. If you have seen a lot of gardening books from the past 20 years, it's impossible not to notice that identical photos recur again and again in books by different authors. They were bought in, you'll see the credits on the back pages. The most over-used photo in northern hemisphere books, must be that one of purple alliums under a tunnel of golden laburnum flowers.

From buying in pictures it was only a short step to wannabee "authors" using the internet to gather second-hand information which they could cobble together without ever having dirtied their hands, tested the method or grown the plant. Now you can see the same old second-hand errors reappearing in different books.

29 Jan '07 4:56 am

[quote="Jack Holloway"]
Perhaps we should start a questionnaire:
1) What is your most valued gardening book?
2) Which book has influenced you the most?
3) Which is your most beautiful gardening book?
4) ?

No more than 3 books per category!

! Smile

Off the cuff, for starters (these are all related to UK gardening before global warming)

I), probably the most frequently turned to; a reference book called Hillyers Manual of Trees and Shrubs.

2) When I started gardening, the books that influenced me most were anything by Margery Fish.
Later,it was Beth Chatto's books.

3) "A gentle plea for chaos" by Miriam Osler.

29 Jan '07 7:25 am

Brlliant idea. My most favourite books are second hand ones I've found and they usually have no-nonsense New Zealand content. Flowery prose in a gardening book comes in handy, though, when one is a budding writer oneself and has run out of adjectives! Hee hee. Let's do it.

29 Jan '07 7:57 am

I think you are absolutely correct. Most new books I have seen are pretty pix and little else.
I wonder tho, is there much else to say that hasn't already been said?.
My most used book of all time is an old veg growing one which has been around in print for yonks. It spoke of chemical sprays and fertilisers, as was most often done when the book was first introduced, but it's latest printing has addressed organics a wee bit for those of us who prefer that option. So it has improved but the content is pretty much the same.

I find any book a guide only, using your own experience with your particular growing conditions will probably give you better results than someone who is reading a label Very Happy

Is it worth going to the local library and getting out a book you are thinking of purchasing (which can cost about the same as a years worth of seedlings!) and having a read first?

29 Jan '07 9:25 am

29 Jan '07 1:34 pm

I'd be guilty of liking gardening books for their pictures rather than their content. Embarassed

I figure the older books are where I'll get the info I need, the newer ones are just my favourite kind of eye candy. I can happily spend ages going through my glossy books or old NZ Gardener mags just dreaming. Smile

Perhaps we should start a questionnaire:

1) What is your most valued gardening book?

Herbs by Emelie Tolley and Chris Mead.
To explain... my aunt had a copy of this book that I'd admired for years. Some of you may have seen the calendars that came out based on this book for some years, but I wanted the book, dangit!
Well last summer I was up in Warkworth and went to a sale being held at various stalls and finally found my own copy. I was overjoyed! Little did the lady who sold it to me know I would have paid her a pretty penny for this book and I got it for next to nothing. Smile

2) Which book has influenced you the most?

I don't think any one, as I love to browse through them all and pick ideas from them but... if I had to pick one I'd say 'Let the Garden go' by Cheryl Maddox.
It was during my 'cottage garden stage' and it lead me to grow the silver birches down our driveway at our old place. I think once we've finished the driveway here I'll do the same. Smile

3) Which is your most beautiful gardening book?

I have one called 'Secret Gardens' by Rosemary Verey. I also like her 'Garden Plans' one. (I hope I've got the titles right as I can't find the blinking books, they're not in the office where they should be!)

4) ?

A book I really really want is... 'The bold and Brilliant Garden' see link
http://touchwoodbooks.co.nz/tboldbrill.html

As you can see it's $50 so I'm going to have to wait a little while before I get it.
My mother has a copy and every time I visit I head straight for that book.
The colours are 'in your face' and I've started to become a little tired of all the pastal colours I have. I want some bright plants and this books is full of inspriational ideas.
My 'The Fairy' is in danger of being moved because of this book.

Bad bad book! Very Happy

30 Jan '07 2:53 am

Okay, I am armed and ready to reply.

Perhaps we should start a questionnaire:

1) What is your most valued gardening book?

For reference purposes, there are a couple. One is The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening by Rodale Press. Mine is a very old copy with no color pictures and very few black and white ones, but lots of illustrations. It gives very good information on organic methods for growing almost any plant. The other is actually a set of books from Taylors Encyclopedia of Gardening. It is heavier on glossy color photos, but accompanies each photo with very valuable descriptive information about the site, decorative elements, and plants included. This is from the book dealing with Garden Design. Others focus more on photos of individual plants; their attributes and preferences.

2) Which book has influenced you the most?

Several: Gertrude Jekyll's Lost Garden by Rosamund Wallinger, Rosemary Verey's Making of a Garden and P. Allen Smith's Garden Home. There are lots of others, but these three come to mind first.

3) Which is your most beautiful gardening book?

My favorite is actually not about a garden, but about a gardener. It is Tasha Tudor's Garden with text by Tovah Martin and photographs by Richard W. Brown. I have read it two times and will probably read it again. It is very inspirational because she was still gardening and painting into her 90th decade!.

30 Jan '07 3:44 am

I have to admit, I have been very lucky with my gardening books over the years. I do not regret buying any of them, some of them still repeatedly revisited. The most exceptional of the English Language ones , which immensely helped me in my earlier gardening, apartment-balcony years , are the following, of the "Expert" Series , by Dr. D.G. Hessayon:

1--The House Plant Expert

2--The Flower Expert

3--The Tree and Shrub Expert

4--The Rose Expert

In my more mature gardening years, I consider the following books a real treasure ( which I always use together with the previous ones):

1--The Royal Horticultural Society New Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers

2--The Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Roses

All the aforementioned books are perfect on their artistic AND informative levels. My plants, and ...my eyes are really grateful to them!!

But ,I should add, that one of the websites that I also use as important source for plants, a perfect internet Plant Encyclopedia, is : http://www.plantpress.com/plant-encyclopedia

Is it me? Or are gardening books just getting worse?

Is it me? Or are gardening books just getting worse?

I think you are right, Michael...

insidious rot

Re: I think you are right, Michael...

Fresh adjectives

Re: I think you are right, Michael...

Oh dear...

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