Terrain.org editorial board member and landscape writer Scott Calhoun lists his Top 3 gardening books of the year:
For the last two years, I’ve sat on the American Horticultural Society’s Book Award Committee. This means that each week in November and December, two or three or six gardening books show up in my mailbox or on my doorstep to review, peruse, and ultimately judge. In fact, while I was writing this, the UPS man interrupted me with the delivery of a new memoir by a Canadian poet-farmer: Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life. I got diverted and just spent 15 minutes reading the first chapter. For someone crazy about plants, words, and photos, exploring these books is a treat but also a task I take seriously.
After receiving the books, I give each one a general once-over, read the introductory material, table of contents, and first chapter. If I’m compelled to read on, the book makes it into my “for further review” pile, which after a complete read eventually gets whittled down to a top 10 list. Last year, most of my finalists (and many of the winners) were large format hard-bound affairs crammed with luscious full-bleed photos, plant lists and other useful information in mostly photo-driven formats.
This year, the quality of the writing and depth of the research is shining through and my top three selections thus far contain no photographs whatsoever.
Read the full entry at Scott Calhoun’s blog, Scott Calhoun’s Desert.
