Even during a shutdown, you can still get into the garden—and into a good book
The third week of April and we are being asked to stay home—but not to stop gardening. If you don’t have a garden you can still escape to the outdoors by reading about gardens. Nurseries and garden centers can still sell plants, seeds, fertilizers, soil and tools as gardening is an essential industry. Pollinators need flowers, people need vegetables, and this should be the year we grow some of our own food.
This week continue to plant cool-season crops like lettuce, spinach, carrots and peas. Prepare the soil for warm-season crops that can be planted in a few weeks. It is still too cold for tomatoes, squash, peppers and corn.
It is never too cold to read about gardens and for growing inspiration. These three new books from Timber Press can be ordered online or from the library and delivered to your door.
“Chasing Eden: Design Inspiration from the Gardens of Hortulus Farm” by Jack Staub and Renny Reynolds
If you’ve ever dreamed of moving to the country with unlimited resources and rescuing an abandoned 15-acre farm and turning it into a horticultural heaven, then this is the true story that will make your heart sing and your thumb itch to begin planting. Add the glitter of a rock star past (one of the authors helped to design Studio 54 in New York), and you’ve got gardening and a bit of showman glitz steeped in practical design tips and illustrated with gorgeous photography. Beautiful pictures on every single page mean that this 270-page book resembles a glossy magazine with extra words of wisdom. Both of the authors dispense design and plant advice, only sometimes forgetting that their visits to Europe to bring home large pieces of garden art are not exactly the way most of us acquire our garden focal points. The location of this farm is in rural Pennsylvania, but all of the plant material can be found at local nurseries and garden centers. Read this and reap the enthusiasm, and you’ll be ready to chase your own Eden right from your backyard.
Great idea to try: A yellow and variegated theme garden using plants with citron and yellow blooms beneath splashy white, green and yellow splotched foliage. This unique design idea explains why garden tours, tourists and the curious flock to Hortulus Farm from all over the world. This book means you can visit from the safety of your armchair.
“Paradise on the Hudson: The Creation, Loss and Revival of a Great American Garden” by Caroline Seebohm
Do you love American history? Fascinated by New York millionaires from the turn of the century? Do you cheer for hard workers who go from rags to riches? This is the true story of an almost forgotten millionaire lawyer named Samuel Untermyer, who built a showplace garden of 150 acres along the Hudson River of New York only to have it decay and decline into ruins after his death in 1940. The mansion was toppled and the gardens and priceless outdoor artwork allowed to sink into disrepair. But then there is redemption. You will be reminded of the classic book “The Secret Garden” as you enjoy photographs of how the grand walled garden is restored, fountains are repaired and the trademark garden vista (a stairway down to the river) once again becomes a breathtaking scene. By 2018, the Untermyer Gardens were once again drawing thousands of visitors as a public park in the city of Yonkers. Today, there is no fee to visit the restored masterpiece of a garden, so I suggest we all book a flight and explore it together – once the quarantine is lifted, of course.
Great idea to try: Create your own garden vista by adding a pathway to a focal point—something as simple as a sundial or birth bath will draw the eye.
“A Year at Brandywine Cottage: Six Seasons of Beauty, Bounty and Blooms” by David L. Culp
Another gorgeous book full of photos by Rob Cardillo (the same photographer used in “Chasing Eden” ), but this time the property size is a bit more modest and the garden advice is conveniently arranged into month-long chapters. For April, the author instructs about growing tulips, trilliums and lovely woodland trees and shrubs (plants in bloom now) but also includes recipes for sautéed fiddlehead ferns and the local farmers “funny cake.” Each month there is an inspiration for using cut flowers indoors, for cooking from your garden bounty and most impressively of all for creating a garden that has monthly seasons of beauty and interest. The author breeds hellebores and snowdrops, so the images of his East Coast winter garden are especially inspiring. This is a book to keep on your nightstand all year long. Turn a few pages before bed and you’ll slumber over beautiful ideas about plants, food and design that will lead to a peaceful sleep. Brandywine Cottage proves you can enjoy a simple life at home with a gorgeous outdoor space no matter what the season.
Great idea to try: Plant hellebores on a hillside so you can look up into the downward-facing blooms.
This story was originally published April 11, 2020 at 11:00 AM.