Thank you for the recommendation. Perusing garden books is one of my favorite indoor activities.

I'll post my favorite later when I'm at home, so I get the title right.

:)
Dee

However, my favorite is a book that I've had for many year, The Impressionist Garden, by Derek Fell.

Cameron

I enjoy Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd as garden writers. I love the writing style, and since their southern VT garden is of a similar climate to mine, I find much of what they write about of interest. I just found "Our Life in Gardens" in the bookstore this week and while I've only just begun to dip into it, I found the little I've read so far to be the expected delight. (They start with how they got into gardening . . . they owned & kept chickens in their Beacon Hill apartment . . . who could resist a book that starts like that!) I've also read a book on unusual annuals and one on their North Hill garden.

I also enjoy dipping into Michael Dirr's "Manual of Woody Landscape Plants." I find him unapologetically opinionated and incredibly knowledgeable along with being a good writer.

I guess for me, the most informed garden writer isn't worth reading if I don't enjoy the writing style.

My favorite is Southern Herb Growing by Madalene Hill & Gwen Barclay w/Jean Hardy. It has lots of beautiful photographs; descriptions of dozens of common and unusual herbs with tips for growing & propagating them, and some of their uses---also with pictures. Finally, a section on harvesting, storing & cooking with these herbs, with recipes and more photos.

DIRT: The Lowdown on Growing a Garden with Style is an lol funny book that I've read a couple of times, even though I disagree with a lot of the advice the author gives. And this author, Dianne Benson, is really opinionated. Some of the plants she recommends are invasive, but her description of getting her garden ready to be part of a local garden tour is a hoot.

A Year in Our Gardens: Letters by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy

Naturalizing Bulbs by Rob Proctor

I also enjoy reading the old Elizabeth Lawrence books. She was quite the plantswoman.

The Year In Bloom
The Border In Bloom
The Garden In Bloom

Can't remember what order they should be read in though.

I also really like A Garden For All Seasons which is a Reader's Digest book written in England.

and

The Four-Season Landscape: Easy-Care Plants and Plans for Year-Round Color (A Rodale Garden Book)by Susan Roth

Treelover, you made my jaw drop! I knew Pamela Harper's book was out of print, but $100! Really! I wonder if you checked used books on Amazon? It is a really good book, but...

By the way, her other books are really good too: "Designing with Perennials" and "Color Echoes". She is credited with coining that phrase. I love the first the best though, because it is written for southern gardeners. That seems to be a trend, doesn't it? We all like the books written for our zones best.

Al, I do agree with you about textbook costs. It was hard for me to believe how much prices had inflated when my children went to college.

I could not remember the name of Thyme on My Hands and a Journal in Thyme. Read them years ago and enjoyed them and wanted to read again.

We do seem to have similar climates, and I definitely agree that is a big factor. If you can't use the advice directly, it's all just pretty pictures.

I also really value Cameron, and Ostrich (& quite a few others here)'s advice, maybe some of you don't realize how valuable it is to have so many opinions at your fingertips! Well I for one, do, and thank you all!! :0)

The Eck/Winterrowd books are all fascinating (as are their gardens at North Hill),
and I'm particularly fond of "Duck Hill Journal" by Page Dickey (possibly because
I've spent time talking to her in the garden at Duck Hill :o).

Anne Raver has always been one of my favorite garden writers, and her
columns still appear periodically in The New York Times; "Deep In The Green"
was her first compilation of her best columns from The Times and a good
way to introduce yourself to her style.

Two other favorites: "On Garden Style" by Bunny Williams, and "A Gentle Plea
for Chaos" by Mirabel Osler. Finally, for sheer entertainment, check out
James Dodson's "Beautiful Madness: One Man's Journey Through Other People's Gardens"; to snag your curiosity, here's a book jacket blurb. . .

"During an amazing year of living botanically, in quest of deepening his own
ever-consuming knowledge and interest of gardening, James Dodson went behind the scenes of the world's two most important garden shows (the Philadelphia Flower Show and the Chelsea Garden Show in London); spent
time with a man nicknamed the Botticelli of Bulbs; attended a rare plant auction of high rollers; got adopted as a personal project by a famous garden
club of colonial dames; sneaked into a Hosta convention; communed with the
kindred spirits of Thomas Jefferson and John Bartram; met a man smuggling exotic day lillies in the trunk of his car. . .and wound up hanging perilously
from a limb on the side of a cliff in Southern Africa, where he capped off his year of discovery by tagging along with four of America's leading plant
hunters (including Tony Avent) on an expedition into the rugged jungles to find the exotic new species of tomorrow."

What's not to enjoy ?

Carl

I have read "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden" by Tracy DiSabato-Aust but didn't like it well enough to buy it.

I checked Pamela Harper's "Time Tested Plants: Thirty Years in a Four Season Garden" out from the library but did not read it cover to cover. Nice photos but the text was pretty dry. I also checked out "Color Echoes" I've been doing that all along as a gardener so it wasn't news to me. I can see how both of these would be great for some people though. Nice books.

I'm reading Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd's "Our Life In Gardens" right now and really am enjoying their writing style. I'll be looking for more of their books.

Some garden books are mostly general knowledge and I end up just looking through the photos which I enjoy but this one is informational. I'm actually READING it. lol

I'll second Henry Mitchell and Allen Lacy, but it looks like I really need to expand my library! thanks