Mary Mitchell’s Class Acts (Evans, $21.95, 276 pages, ISBN 0871319799) is an encyclopedia of good manners. Mitchell covers more than just cube-land etiquette with advice on making small talk, conquering public speaking fears and understanding cyberspace rules. Her tips on dining are a godsend (she helps rubes like me order wine), and she handles tough subjects like condolences with compassion and grace. A bookshelf favorite for avoiding social blunders at work or at play.

I kind of wanted to despise Dominique Browning. She is the pale-blue-eyed editor of House ∧ Garden magazine, she has a fabulous house, she has a fantastic garden. And she’s named Dominique, for heaven’s sake. How glamorous is that? But you know, life is complicated, and nobody is perfect. In the course of reading Paths of Desire: The Passions of a Suburban Gardener, it becomes clear that Browning has had her share of mishaps and troubles, not least of which was the collapse of an old wall on her beloved perennial border. This is where Paths of Desire begins, and by the time I finished this story of a garden and its gardener, I was rooting for this funny woman. This is a gardening adventure story set among the intrigues of suburban New York. Will the tree man save the pin oak? Who’s been rooting around in the hostas? Browning’s travails will resonate with every suburbanite longing for a little order in the back yard.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden (Timber, $34.95, 144 pages, ISBN 088192606X) is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (Houghton Mifflin, $45, 447 pages, ISBN 0618226443) is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard (Meredith, $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0696217643), edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla, I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden (Timber, $34.95, 144 pages, ISBN 088192606X) is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (Houghton Mifflin, $45, 447 pages, ISBN 0618226443) is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard, edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla (Storey, $22.95, 484 pages, ISBN 1580173705), I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden (Timber, $34.95, 144 pages, ISBN 088192606X) is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard (Meredith, $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0696217643), edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla (Storey, $22.95, 484 pages, ISBN 1580173705), I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (Clarkson Potter, $50, 256 pages, ISBN 0517707888) is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (Houghton Mifflin, $45, 447 pages, ISBN 0618226443) is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard (Meredith, $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0696217643), edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla (Storey, $22.95, 484 pages, ISBN 1580173705), I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

Books that soothe the itch to get back in the dirt Anybody who loves to garden is having a hard time right now. Here in the mid-South, March gives up a few days so mild that I can’t help but get outside and dig something. The last frost doesn’t come until mid-April, but that never stops me from putting some little thing out that would have preferred to stay inside. I am very, very impatient. This year a number of books are helping me take a breath, step back, and find patience in waiting for the seasons to change. I have enjoyed the work of Ken Druse for many years. His first book, The Nat-ural Garden, was a revelation, filled with pictures of places that hardly looked like “gardens” at all. Artful jungles is more like it. Druse is not trimming topiary; he is creating subtle, elegant gardens that feel like they were planted by Mother Nature herself. He is all about staying close to the place you are gardening: use native plants, be sensitive to the microclimate of your property, remember nature. Each book he writes is an occasion for joy, and his new book, The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime is his most joyful yet.

Druse has covered a lot of technical ground in his previous books, the “what” of gardening. Here he focuses on the ineffable “why”: what is it that draws people to the garden? He introduces us to gardeners who share his passion for gardening as a lifelong pursuit. A varied group of gardens (one with a topiary, even!) is at the heart of this book, each photographed in a beautiful, careful way. At the core of these gardens is a lot of knowledge and talent and vision. But most of all, there is a passion an infectious kind of love that will inspire all of us who love to make gardens.

Dutch treat Cousins to Ken Druse might be Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen, a renowned pair of gardeners from the Netherlands who are getting a lot of attention for their idea of the natural garden. For the past 20 years, they have scoured Europe and the United States for plants that are sturdy and low maintenance, but have the beautiful appearance of familiar cultivated perennials and annuals. Their gardens have the same looseness and unmanicured appearance that Ken Druse’s have. Planting the Natural Garden (Timber, $34.95, 144 pages, ISBN 088192606X) is their magnum opus of plants a Hall of Fame listing of their time-tested favorites. Included are cultivation details and photographs of each plant, along with suggested combinations and planting diagrams. Anyone who longs to move beyond the basics will marvel at this book for its fresh notion of a natural garden that holds up without looking weedy.

The basics? Begin here I am a Taylor’s junkie. When I first got serious about gardening 10 years ago, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening was my bible. If Taylor’s liked a plant, so did I. If it wasn’t in Taylor’s, it wasn’t in my garden.

The latest Taylor’s Guide a whopper as big as the Master Guide continues the same concise, clear format that has helped me so much. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (Houghton Mifflin, $45, 447 pages, ISBN 0618226443) is filled with more than 1,200 plants: perennials, annuals, grasses, trees, shrubs. It’s not every plant ever propagated; it’s every plant that the Taylor’s Guide experts feel is a good choice for North American gardens. A plant encyclopedia can be many things: a reference, a wish book, a troubleshooter. Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is all these, produced in the most straightforward, lovely way possible.

One small note: Taylor’s gives the pronunciation of each plant, which is a merciful thing when you are trying to sound all smart and name that little blue flower but can’t figure out how to say “platycodon.” (It’s “plat-ee-KOE-don.”) Getting the yard you want The only television channels safe to watch anymore are the Food Network and HGTV. The worst beating you’ll see on Emeril Live is a meringue in process; the most violent act on Landscapers Challenge is the brutal ripping-out of a crummy deck. The landscaping shows on HGTV are mesmerizing, the sort of armchair gardening that is perfect for those evenings when you have had it with your own plot of land. Those enterprising HGTVers have now turned to books, and there’s much to absorb in Landscape Makeovers: 50 Projects for a Picture-Perfect Yard (Meredith, $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0696217643), edited by Marilyn Rogers.

This book gives the details of projects you may have seen on HGTV programs. Curb appeal, privacy, overcoming problem areas there are tons of ideas in here to help make your landscape beautiful. Each project is rated in difficulty, time, cost and skills required. Landscape Makeovers is as satisfying as a night watching HGTV. Unlike the shows, however, this book explains exactly how to achieve the results you want. In this book, all seems possible.

The ultimate in patience Sometimes, impatience is bad for the environment. Terrible, in fact. Now that I have read The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla (Storey, $22.95, 484 pages, ISBN 1580173705), I promise I will never spray my roses again with that toxic, brain-eating stuff. It only takes a few minutes to pick off those Japanese beetles, and all the good bugs in my garden will thank me.

Denckla is such a gentle advocate for organic gardening that you can’t help but want to try it, too. There is nothing shrill or dogmatic about the way she explains her subject. She debunks all the myths of organic gardening (it’s expensive/difficult/time consuming) with sensible truths, and the result is this manifesto of how to grow food that is in tune with nature.

In the book, Denckla reveals her own evolution as an organic gardener. Wanting to learn about the old ways, she began collecting information, and after four years, she discovered she had a book. A wonderful one, in fact. She explains how to grow every imaginable vegetable, nut and fruit, explaining the importance of rotating crops, planting a diverse garden and growing certain plant allies near each other. There’s a rogues’ gallery of evil pests, with non-toxic remedies; a list of plants that grow well together allies; and appendices full of organic gardening standards and resources. You will learn a lot with this book, and it may change the way you treat your garden.

A soggy epilogue At the end of Ken Druse’s Passion for Gardening is a stunning photograph of his garden, his beloved garden, flooded by the river that runs beside it. However traumatic this was for him (it had to be akin to Hemingway losing a manuscript), he writes about it with equanimity. I am taking to heart his conclusion: “I am indeed the junior partner in this collaboration with nature” a partnership that requires nothing but patience. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage. She tends her garden in Nashville.

While women are increasingly getting involved these days in do-it-yourself maintenance and repair, men are still the main tool-wielders and fixer-uppers in the home and out in the garage. Sandor Nagyszalanczy’s The Homeowner’s Ultimate Tool Guide: Choosing the Right Tool for Every Home Improvement Job is a simply fabulous oversized paperback featuring striking color photos of, and detailed commentary on, every modern-day tool imaginable, from carpentry, electrical, plumbing and automotive uses to drywall, demolition, painting and roofing uses. The author presents a bounty of endlessly useful descriptions of tool types, subdivided by function (tools that grab, shape, shave, saw, snip, drill, pound, sharpen, grind, measure and so on). The text is supplemented by valuable sidebars on safety, work tips for specific jobs, and additional details on particular models of tools, including advice on when to rent for that irregular project versus making a purchase that will last a lifetime of home improvements. The Homeowner’s Ultimate Tool Guide would be a fabulous gift for that special guy who knows what he’s doing around the house and enjoys doing it with the utmost efficiency.

Whether you’re looking to overhaul your home’s outdated colors and tired furniture, or you simply enjoy living vicariously through the good taste of others, the latest batch of design books offers plenty of ideas for making personal spaces more appealing.

The decorating book expected to make the biggest splash this spring is Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes (Meredith, $19.95, 175 pages, ISBN 0696217120), a treasury of insider information from the phenomenally popular home improvement show, “Trading Spaces.” For the two or three people in America who have somehow missed the TV show, here’s the rundown: Homeowners sign up to redecorate (and, in some cases, ruin) a room in a neighbor’s home with the help of designers and a $1,000 budget. At the end of two days, the rooms are revealed to the owners. The result might be a tastefully appointed French Country bedroom . . . or a living room with hay glued on the walls.

Edited by Brian Kramer, Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes offers candid biographies of the show’s main players. Perky host Paige Davis admits that her upbeat personality evokes a love/hate reaction people either love her or find her, in her own words, “loud, obnoxious, dramatic, overbearing and annoying.” Designer Frank Bielec, known for his country kitsch designs, admits that he used to work as an aerobics instructor. Hildi Santo-Tomas, the designer with an aloof demeanor and a penchant for high-glamour rooms, reveals her goofy passion for Pluto, a Labrador Retriever she calls her “life source and soul.” Beyond the bios, Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes includes revealing photos and hilarious features, such as a table to help readers determine which of the show’s cast is their design soul mate. The book ends with a roundup of every “Trading Spaces” episode. Aside from the gratuitous poster-size portraits of cast members, which would appeal only to a true fanatic, this book is an extremely satisfying peek inside a little show that became a monster hit. While the book is heavy on fun facts, it’s light on decorating tips. For that, open up Think Color: Rooms to Live In (Chronicle, $40, 172 pages, ISBN 0811836703) by Tricia Guild. This hefty volume of decorating inspiration is an antidote for those who balk at the thought of citrus-colored walls or pink bedding. Think Color proves that bright, bold colors can look tasteful and, yes, even soothing.

Guild is the creative director and cofounder of Designers Guild, a company that specializes in sleek designs with liberal use of fresh flowers and vibrant fabrics. The colorful photos in the book convey this rich sensibility, and accompanying text offers advice on everything from creative ways of serving food to successfully using wallpaper.

Novice decorators will appreciate Guild’s concise explanations of her choices in each room. A bold room where flowery red, yellow and blue curtains are paired with a rainbow-striped chair somehow looks restful. How? As Guild explains, this is because a barely noticed white rug ties together and “stabilizes” the room. Don’t worry if reading this gorgeous book doesn’t result in a major transformation in your own home. Just flipping through these glossy pages is satisfying enough.

If just adding a few throw pillows won’t do the trick, turn to The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design by Boston architect Jeremiah Eck. The author aims to explain the essence of a distinctive home, and he succeeds with this ode to good architectural design. You don’t need a degree in architecture to understand his simple, thoughtful meditations on houses. Eck considers every element of the home, from landscaping to roofline, and explains the importance of both the smallest details (the chimney) and the bigger picture (how the house appears from a distance).

In Eck’s view, a home is more than just a storage unit for TVs, appliances and Jacuzzis. “To me,” he says, “one of the goals of a house should be not just to provide pleasure but to achieve a higher level of all-encompassing satisfaction. Well-proportioned spaces, good light and small but thoughtful details can help push a home beyond mere pleasure.” The book is filled with beautiful color photos that give detailed ideas on how to make your own home distinctive. Amy Scribner’s latest home improvement project was painting the bathroom of her Washington D.C. home in periwinkle blue.

Whether you’re looking to overhaul your home’s outdated colors and tired furniture, or you simply enjoy living vicariously through the good taste of others, the latest batch of design books offers plenty of ideas for making personal spaces more appealing.

The decorating book expected to make the biggest splash this spring is Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes (Meredith, $19.95, 175 pages, ISBN 0696217120), a treasury of insider information from the phenomenally popular home improvement show, “Trading Spaces.” For the two or three people in America who have somehow missed the TV show, here’s the rundown: Homeowners sign up to redecorate (and, in some cases, ruin) a room in a neighbor’s home with the help of designers and a $1,000 budget. At the end of two days, the rooms are revealed to the owners. The result might be a tastefully appointed French Country bedroom . . . or a living room with hay glued on the walls.

Edited by Brian Kramer, Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes offers candid biographies of the show’s main players. Perky host Paige Davis admits that her upbeat personality evokes a love/hate reaction people either love her or find her, in her own words, “loud, obnoxious, dramatic, overbearing and annoying.” Designer Frank Bielec, known for his country kitsch designs, admits that he used to work as an aerobics instructor. Hildi Santo-Tomas, the designer with an aloof demeanor and a penchant for high-glamour rooms, reveals her goofy passion for Pluto, a Labrador Retriever she calls her “life source and soul.” Beyond the bios, Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes includes revealing photos and hilarious features, such as a table to help readers determine which of the show’s cast is their design soul mate. The book ends with a roundup of every “Trading Spaces” episode. Aside from the gratuitous poster-size portraits of cast members, which would appeal only to a true fanatic, this book is an extremely satisfying peek inside a little show that became a monster hit. While the book is heavy on fun facts, it’s light on decorating tips. For that, open up Think Color: Rooms to Live In by Tricia Guild. This hefty volume of decorating inspiration is an antidote for those who balk at the thought of citrus-colored walls or pink bedding. Think Color proves that bright, bold colors can look tasteful and, yes, even soothing.

Guild is the creative director and cofounder of Designers Guild, a company that specializes in sleek designs with liberal use of fresh flowers and vibrant fabrics. The colorful photos in the book convey this rich sensibility, and accompanying text offers advice on everything from creative ways of serving food to successfully using wallpaper.

Novice decorators will appreciate Guild’s concise explanations of her choices in each room. A bold room where flowery red, yellow and blue curtains are paired with a rainbow-striped chair somehow looks restful. How? As Guild explains, this is because a barely noticed white rug ties together and “stabilizes” the room. Don’t worry if reading this gorgeous book doesn’t result in a major transformation in your own home. Just flipping through these glossy pages is satisfying enough.

If just adding a few throw pillows won’t do the trick, turn to The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design (Taunton, $40, 240 pages, ISBN 1561585289) by Boston architect Jeremiah Eck. The author aims to explain the essence of a distinctive home, and he succeeds with this ode to good architectural design. You don’t need a degree in architecture to understand his simple, thoughtful meditations on houses. Eck considers every element of the home, from landscaping to roofline, and explains the importance of both the smallest details (the chimney) and the bigger picture (how the house appears from a distance).

In Eck’s view, a home is more than just a storage unit for TVs, appliances and Jacuzzis. “To me,” he says, “one of the goals of a house should be not just to provide pleasure but to achieve a higher level of all-encompassing satisfaction. Well-proportioned spaces, good light and small but thoughtful details can help push a home beyond mere pleasure.” The book is filled with beautiful color photos that give detailed ideas on how to make your own home distinctive. Amy Scribner’s latest home improvement project was painting the bathroom of her Washington D.C. home in periwinkle blue.

Whether you’re looking to overhaul your home’s outdated colors and tired furniture, or you simply enjoy living vicariously through the good taste of others, the latest batch of design books offers plenty of ideas for making personal spaces more appealing.

The decorating book expected to make the biggest splash this spring is Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes, a treasury of insider information from the phenomenally popular home improvement show, “Trading Spaces.” For the two or three people in America who have somehow missed the TV show, here’s the rundown: Homeowners sign up to redecorate (and, in some cases, ruin) a room in a neighbor’s home with the help of designers and a $1,000 budget. At the end of two days, the rooms are revealed to the owners. The result might be a tastefully appointed French Country bedroom . . . or a living room with hay glued on the walls.

Edited by Brian Kramer, Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes offers candid biographies of the show’s main players. Perky host Paige Davis admits that her upbeat personality evokes a love/hate reaction people either love her or find her, in her own words, “loud, obnoxious, dramatic, overbearing and annoying.” Designer Frank Bielec, known for his country kitsch designs, admits that he used to work as an aerobics instructor. Hildi Santo-Tomas, the designer with an aloof demeanor and a penchant for high-glamour rooms, reveals her goofy passion for Pluto, a Labrador Retriever she calls her “life source and soul.” Beyond the bios, Trading Spaces: Behind the Scenes includes revealing photos and hilarious features, such as a table to help readers determine which of the show’s cast is their design soul mate. The book ends with a roundup of every “Trading Spaces” episode. Aside from the gratuitous poster-size portraits of cast members, which would appeal only to a true fanatic, this book is an extremely satisfying peek inside a little show that became a monster hit. While the book is heavy on fun facts, it’s light on decorating tips. For that, open up Think Color: Rooms to Live In (Chronicle, $40, 172 pages, ISBN 0811836703) by Tricia Guild. This hefty volume of decorating inspiration is an antidote for those who balk at the thought of citrus-colored walls or pink bedding. Think Color proves that bright, bold colors can look tasteful and, yes, even soothing.

Guild is the creative director and cofounder of Designers Guild, a company that specializes in sleek designs with liberal use of fresh flowers and vibrant fabrics. The colorful photos in the book convey this rich sensibility, and accompanying text offers advice on everything from creative ways of serving food to successfully using wallpaper.

Novice decorators will appreciate Guild’s concise explanations of her choices in each room. A bold room where flowery red, yellow and blue curtains are paired with a rainbow-striped chair somehow looks restful. How? As Guild explains, this is because a barely noticed white rug ties together and “stabilizes” the room. Don’t worry if reading this gorgeous book doesn’t result in a major transformation in your own home. Just flipping through these glossy pages is satisfying enough.

If just adding a few throw pillows won’t do the trick, turn to The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design (Taunton, $40, 240 pages, ISBN 1561585289) by Boston architect Jeremiah Eck. The author aims to explain the essence of a distinctive home, and he succeeds with this ode to good architectural design. You don’t need a degree in architecture to understand his simple, thoughtful meditations on houses. Eck considers every element of the home, from landscaping to roofline, and explains the importance of both the smallest details (the chimney) and the bigger picture (how the house appears from a distance).

In Eck’s view, a home is more than just a storage unit for TVs, appliances and Jacuzzis. “To me,” he says, “one of the goals of a house should be not just to provide pleasure but to achieve a higher level of all-encompassing satisfaction. Well-proportioned spaces, good light and small but thoughtful details can help push a home beyond mere pleasure.” The book is filled with beautiful color photos that give detailed ideas on how to make your own home distinctive. Amy Scribner’s latest home improvement project was painting the bathroom of her Washington D.C. home in periwinkle blue.

Here it is the armchair gardening book of the season: Gardening in Eden: The Joys of Planning and Tending a Garden by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II. This is as delightful a book about gardening as I’ve read. There are clues that Arthur Vanderbilt is not throwing some impatiens in the ground and calling it a garden. He is a lawyer and nonfiction author by trade, but he has been working on his New Jersey garden for 20 years. He confesses that it has good bones, stone walls, steps and paths to different vistas. He has boxwood-bordered beds. There’s a pond. He’s a goner, clearly, and his passion for his garden comes through in his careful observation, his knowledge of plants, and above all, his love of the never-ending seasons.

A gardening book without pictures is a special pleasure. I’m guessing that Arthur Vanderbilt has some spectacular vistas at his home, but what this book does so well is let us see them in process, through his eyes, in all their incomplete and imperfect glory.

Right now I’m missing my garden. At the moment it is a bare scene, the color sucked out of it, the dry reeds of last year’s fennel rattling in the wind. I came across a photograph I took last April, when I first planted up my little space. The greenness of it all so many sprouts, such happy little boxwoods. It was like finding a baby picture when your child is a teenager when was this ever real? As winter grinds to its end, the solace of seed and plant catalogs is great. But when I see a catalog photo of an impossibly bloomy shrub rose, I wonder a) did they glue extra blossoms on there? and b) how could I ever get such a thing to grow like that in my own garden? This is why I prefer books as my preseason warm-up: at least these folks aren’t trying to sell me something. Seen in a book, that same bloomy shrub rose becomes not a tarty come-on but a noble goal, a specimen that any patient and well-intentioned gardener can nurture to its rightful destiny.

A number of exciting new books are full of noble goals for the patient gardener. And there’s a good one for the impatient gardener, too.

Inspiration If you don’t know who P. Allen Smith is, you haven’t been watching enough TV. This soft-voiced Southern gardener is a gentle antidote to Martha Stewart, and his syndicated show and frequent spots on the Weather Channel and CBS reveal a guy who seems, above all, unpretentious and friendly. Probably grows tomatoes at home, you think when you see him. But when you see his new book, you realize it’s like someone saying he likes eggs, and you glance up to see a dozen FabergŽs on the mantelpiece. Smith is downhome, but he is thinking big, too.

It is a treat to read P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home: Creating a Garden for Everyday Living (Clarkson Potter, $29.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0609609327). Read this book for the author’s overarching principle: to think of the space outside your home as an extension of the home, not as a swath of lawn to mow. Use that space to create areas that blur the distinction between inside and out, and create outdoor spaces for the things you love to do: cook, relax, play with children, entertain. This notion of garden “rooms” is quite English and quite ancient, so Smith provides photographs of long-established gardens both English and American that make his case in a lovely way. His own gardens provide the core of the illustrations, and they are amazing. There is much here for those of us without giant landscaping budgets or huge yards: practical advice on choosing plants, a wealth of ideas for adding privacy and an overall message that we should think about our yards in a new way. All is delivered in a sophisticated, elegant book design.

Another new book to get you thinking fresh is Garden Color (Better Homes and Gardens, $19.95, 192 pages, ISBN 0696215349). Just about every gardener has a place, by a front door or a porch, where the main goal is vibrant color. This book takes you through the color wheel, exploring color theory in the garden and showing in dozens of photographs plant combinations that will make color explode in your garden. In that sturdy Better Homes and Gardens way, the focus is on plants that are widely available and easy to grow. Every plant ever grown Well, not quite. But something very special for gardeners is going on in American Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Plants ∧ Flowers, Christopher Brickell and Trevor Cole, editors-in-chief (DK, $60, 720 pages, ISBN 0789489937). There are a number of comprehensive plant encyclopedias out there (Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening has been my favorite), but they tend to be arranged alphabetically. The AHS Encyclopedia arranges plants by color, size and type. This Plant Selector system is a godsend for the gardener trying to fill a gap in a garden (“I need a small yellow perennial blooming early spring”) or someone who forgot the name of the plant she saw at the garden center (“It was a white climber”). But that’s not all. In addition to the full-color Plant Selector, the Plant Dictionary covers 8,000 plants, which is a help when you return from the garden center chanting “lamium, lamium” and can’t remember what it is.

There is a reason some books cost $60. (The proofreading bill alone on this thing had to be wicked.) But the results are worth it: a rich resource for the gardener who is ready to move beyond flats of pansies and start thinking about the enormous world of plants. I will be using this book often this spring.

Practicality And then there’s the real world, where those flats of pansies sit for a while on the back porch, reproachful every time I pass them. Not a noble sight at all. It is impossible to do everything I’d like to do in my garden, but I would be miserable without it. Joanna Smith understands this dilemma, and she is full of ideas in The One-Hour Garden: How You Can Have a No-Fuss, No-Work Garden (Reader’s Digest, $26.95, 160 pages, ISBN 0762104252). The title, of course, is a tease the only no-work garden is a paved garden. What’s helpful about this book is the notion of time management. Smith spends most of the book evaluating the time and trouble required for various garden elements and plants, which is not how many gardeners approach their garden planning. She’s anti-lawn, anti-weeding and pro-gravel, and she encourages careful thought about soil conditions, light and moisture. This book will take more than an hour to read, which will put you a week behind on your garden. But Smith shoehorns a ton of information into this colorful volume, with lots of quick lists, short how-tos and hints. This book will save time for every gardener, even the ones who like a high-fuss, tons-of-work garden. Small pleasures Finally, there is good news for anyone who doesn’t have access to a yard. Rosemary McCreary is a prolific garden book author, and her newest volume brings the idea of landscaping inside. Tabletop Gardens is not your average houseplant book. A single plant placed with care becomes a sculpture. A glass globe becomes a child’s fairy-tale garden. Flowering bulbs and forsythia branches turn into a centerpiece garden. McCreary isn’t one to plop a ficus in a corner and be done; the lovely color photographs prove that a tabletop garden can be a fascinating indoor environment. Cactus, grasses, climbing vines and bromeliads are all on her list of unusual ways to decorate with living plants, and her plant lists and care information make it all seem quite simple. Even if you do have an acre of perennials and a topiary garden, Tabletop Gardens is an inspiration. Sometimes, thinking small can be the most noble goal of all. Ann Shayne is a former editor of BookPage.