<b>Murphy’s Law strikes the garden</b> What gardener doesn’t indulge in <i>schadenfreude</i> from the smug perch of an armchair in early spring, before their own epic mistakes come to roost in their exotics? <b>The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for a Perfect Garden</b> is a delicious ride through one man’s seriocomic horticultural adventure: to create the most impressive garden ever to set off his historic, rundown old heap of a house in New York’s Hudson Valley. And that man, William Alexander husband, father and director of technology by day meets his emotional and intellectual match while cultivating a few acres of fruits, vegetables, roses and cottage flowers. Encountering the jolly act of weeding more than 20 beds and trying to figure out how the sod mealworms got up the hill to his corn, his transformation to gentleman farmer well-versed in Murphy’s Law is presented in chapters including One Man’s Weed Is Jean-Georges’s Salad, Nature Abhors a Meadow (But Loves a Good Fire), Statuary Rape, and Whore in the Bedroom, Horticulturist in the Garden. As Alexander cans peaches, learns to garden with his wife ( like trying to grow mint and horseradish in the same bed ), fights Japanese beetles and works with a gardener who looks and acts suspiciously like the actor Christopher Walken, readers will relate to his basic philosophical dilemma: am I becoming my garden, or is my garden becoming me? Through follies and mistakes and temper tantrums and bad decisions that reveal more about personality and character than he’d like to admit (this committed environmentalist once soaked his vegetables in the pesticide diazinon in a fit over bugs), Alexander is eventually humbled and awed by Mother Nature’s final word, always delivered without anger or acrimony.

Apparently, Prince Charles was right: talking to plants isn’t barmy. As it turns out, however, it’s not the words of encouragement that keep the primroses blooming, but the huff of breath while talking to and watering houseplants that helps those routine-lovers adjust to changing wind conditions around the house and garden. This and many other rich tidbits in The Complete Houseplant Survival Manual will convince hapless home gardeners that they can have the many benefits of indoor landscapes without committing horticultural homicide. Here’s something the guilt-ridden might like to know, thanks to author Barbara Pleasant: some houseplants are only meant to survive a year or two (whew), many can’t cope with dry indoor air without daily help, and even within varieties, plants are like children, each having their own personalities and needing a slightly different approach. That said, this attractive illustrated directory boosts beginners’ confidence with a directory of hardy houseplants from cacti and succulents to orchids, bulbs and blooming plants. Pleasant discusses each variety’s characteristics and needs including water/humidity, food and light (she has a fantastic method for determining indoor lighting strengths and best plant positions). A handy symbol a cute flowerpot also marks the most hardy, abuse-proof houseplants (think Devil’s Ivy) to ensure that even novices can have immediate success.

The Victory Garden is the longest-running gardening program on American television, popular for its folksy style and Yankee practicality. Despite new generations of hosts and changes in garden styles, that unpretentious tone has remained refreshingly consistent, especially in books inspired by the show including the latest, The Victory Garden Companion. Released April 1 to coincide with the program’s 30th anniversary season on public television, the book covers every basic principle of domestic gardening in a readable, conversational style, from views and vantage points and braving the elements including sun, wind and rain, to entrances and exits, backyard fixtures and features, an excellent section on lawn (or the lack of necessity for it), flowers, the urban garden and the edible garden, which inspired the series’ name. Add step-by-step weekend projects, Inspired Gardens features on horticultural highlights from around the world, the Best Bets columns such as the top five tools for vegetable gardeners, Digging Deeper sections on current gardening trends including heirloom seeds and solar power, lush color illustrations and the reasonable price, and this book becomes black gold for any gardener looking for that perfect combination of how-to and why in one handy volume.

Mother Nature doesn’t need a paint chip to combine colors. Even her most garish combinations, like a field of riotous wild flowers in spring, have a grace and beauty about them that amateur gardeners often find difficult to duplicate. So America’s favorite gardener turns timid paint-by-number gardeners into bold and creative artists in P. Allen Smith’s Colors for the Garden: Creating Compelling Color Themes. Painting on a canvas as large as a backyard can be daunting, so Smith provides his usual reassuring and clear advice, linking home and garden colors to create a harmonious palette using the garden home concepts introduced in his previous books such as enclosure, activity, whimsy and abundance. Smith helps gardeners discover their color preferences and incorporate cool, warm and neutral plant hues against the backdrop of walkways, arbors, fences and other hardscape elements. The book also explores how texture, shape and light affect colors, and how to use natural elements as frames for outdoor compositions. Excellent photographs underline Smith’s points, and his plant directory features vigorous, easy-care and dependable varieties from shrubs and trees to annuals, along with seasonal combinations in each color temperature, that can be used as a paint box to create original, living art.

If the formal lines of Versailles, Sissinghurst Castle or the gardens of Kyoto fertilize your horticultural aspirations, then the imaginative gardens in The New Garden Paradise: Great Private Gardens of the World will raise the bar for your backyard. Edited by the incomparable Dominique Browning, essayist and editor-in-chief of House &andamp; Garden magazine, the book declares that the last decade has produced exceptionally talented and progressive landscape architects and designers and supports that premise with detailed, breathless text and phenomenal photos of 35 personal paradises full of tangible innovation that blooms and sways in the breeze. While pretentious design descriptors like lush and sensual, ruthlessly discriminating and tour de force are somewhat distracting, the gardens themselves remain as mysterious and elusive as a good novel or poem. Caught in various moods and seasons and organized into categories including New Classicism, Personal Visions and the Cottage Garden Reinvented, these gardens ultimately surpass words to stir the pure feeling, according to Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, that people long for.

The store that stained the American home espresso now gives its fans even more to drool over in Pottery Barn Home. Basically one long, luxurious PB catalog, this coffee table (in espresso wood, of course) book is a guide to the clean, contemporary look that has made the store and its mix-and-match furniture and accessories a hit. Broken down into typical living areas of the house, more than 600 glossy photographs illustrate a variety of room dŽcor options in the modern to contemporary country vein, with sidebars that dissect the design decisions for easy imitation. New homeowners and amateur decorators can learn the basics in back-of-book sections on selecting furniture, fittings, fabrics and window treatments; determining room layouts; and using color, texture and pattern in interiors. But the book functions best as an aspirational blueprint to modern, yet relaxed and accessible interior design.

Learning how to redecorate a room is one thing, but what if your home needs basic improvements and additions? In Room for Improvement: Change Your Home! Enhance Your Life! With Tools, Tips, and Inspiration from Barbara K, New York businesswoman and entrepreneur Barbara Kavovit shows you how to make home repair (and home maintenance) simple. Geared specifically toward women, Room for Improvement teaches readers how to take control of repair projects. With easy-to-follow instructions on how to fix a scratched hardwood floor or replace a broken windowpane, and fun, simple projects like installing a mantelshelf and hanging a ceiling pot rack, Barbara K shows you how to make the most of your home. Brimming with useful information, Room for Improvement proves that home repair should be empowering, not intimidating. Abby Plesser studies English at Vanderbilt University.

TV personality and designer guru Todd Oldham shares his expertise and flair for refurbishing in Handmade Modern: Mid-Century Inspired Projects for Your Home. Oldham’s book is a celebration of nesting and encourages homeowners to update their living spaces in the modernist tradition. Complete with information on major modernist architects and designers of the 20th century, Handmade Modern is as much a reference book as it is a how-to manual. Oldham includes a helpful list of tool box basics and provides step-by-step instructions for each project. With beautiful photographs of each room, Oldham gives do-it-yourselfers the opportunity to update individual pieces or revitalize an entire home. Abby Plesser studies English at Vanderbilt University.

If the task of redecorating seems incredibly daunting, start simple that’s the advice Douglas Wilson of TLC’s immensely popular Trading Spaces provides in his first book, Doug’s Rooms: Transforming Your Space One Room at a Time. Wilson teaches readers how to arrange furniture, adjust lighting, manage clutter and, most importantly, how to use their own ideas to update their homes. Using his kick start method, Wilson shows you how to build a room around one thing you love whether it’s a favorite photo, a piece of fabric or a sculpture. And with 10 unique sample rooms on display, Wilson demonstrates how he used simple concepts to create sophisticated rooms. So whether you’re looking to accent a particular room or start from the ground up, Doug’s Rooms is an accessible, inventive resource.

Abby Plesser studies English at Vanderbilt University.

Admit it: if you’re like most homeowners and renters, the thought of splashing color on your walls petrifies you. Why risk ruining a perfectly good off-white room with a green gone bad or a too-intense red? Well, Debbie Travis, the host of HGTV’s The Painted House and Facelift, is here with some great ideas to beat the lack-of-color blues. In her new book, Debbie Travis’ Facelift: Solutions to Revitalize Your Home, Travis breaks down design ideas according to mood. With detailed instructions, she helps you choose the right mood and then redecorate a room or a series of rooms accordingly. Whether you’re hoping to develop a calm, cheerful, nostalgic or dramatic mood for your home, Travis has the color palettes, fabrics, furnishings and most of all, the encouragement you need to make drastic changes. Abby Plesser studies English at Vanderbilt University.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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