Spring is here, which means it’s time to pull on your gardening gloves and get your hands in some soil. Here are our Sasquatch Picks to get ready for gardening season. They also make great Mother’s Day gifts!
Little Book of Flower Series
by Tara Austen Weaver; Illustrated by Emily Poole
Perfect for flower fans, this series is a little love letter to the peony and to the dahlia, each bursting with tips, tricks and facts. Did you know peonies are queens of the spring garden? Or that Dahlias are the showboats of the flower world—colorful, flamboyant, and spectacular? These charming little hardcover books include 60+ full-color botanical illustrations, basic botany and history, everything you need to know to grow gorgeous blooms in the garden, tips for creating beautiful arrangements and preserving flowers, plus quotes, lore, and notable gardens and growers.
Tiny Space Gardening
by Amy Pennington
Learn how to cultivate an edible garden in small outdoor urban spaces to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs with these easy ideas, tips, and techniques! Inside you’ll find the basics of gardening in pots and containers, small windowsill and countertop projects, and specific recommendations for edibles that grow well in containers. Also included are 30 simple recipes you can make with your harvest, from Zucchini Fritters to Herby Pasta with Lettuce and Proscuitto, to Rosy Strawberry Buttermilk cake. No matter how small your space, you can successfully grow your tiny garden!
The Colorful Dry Garden
by Maureen Gilmer
This design-focused, easy-to-use guide to colorful, eye-catching foliage and flowers for your whole yard—from the ground plane to the canopy—is perfect for homeowners and landscapers faced with replacing thirsty gardens in dry regions in the Western US. Chapters include flowering shrubs, the ground plain, eye-catching accents, ephemeral flowers, perennials for color, animated plants and fine textures, canopy, and edibles, with plant profiles, background information, and top picks lists. It’s everything a gardener needs to have a vibrant dry garden.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
by Carla Emery
Currently #4 on the House and Home bestsellers list, gardeners have been relying on this homesteading classic for more than 50 years. It’s the essential guide to living a self-sustaining lifestyle for homesteaders to urban farmers, and everyone in between. Learn how to live independently in this comprehensive guide, including how to: plan your garden, grow your own food, learn beekeeping, raise chickens, goats, and pigs, make organic bug spray, forage for wild food, and so much more! Basic, thorough, and reliable, this book deserves a place in urban and rural homes alike.
The Children’s Garden
by Carole Lexa Schaefer; Illustrated by Pierr Morgan
Welcome to the Children’s Garden–a beautiful place to connect with nature and the food cycle! In rich prose and lush illustrations, this charming picture book depicts a diverse group of children as urban farmers, exploring the sights, smells, sensations, and tastes of growing their own food in a community garden. The story invites young readers to enjoy summer’s bounty and the hands-on experience of tending and harvesting it, while the colorful illustrations depict a multicultural community of children learning about and enjoying a sustainable, local food system.
Oh, La La!
by Ciscoe Morris
The most beloved and respected gardening expert of the Pacific Northwest, Ciscoe Morris shares advice, information, and wisdom from a career that has spanned 45 years and is still going strong. With heart and humor, Morris regales us with stories from the gardens he has tended, the wildlife he has encountered–deer, moles, rats, birds, and more–the dogs who have joined him on his travels, the secret lives of insects, and his endeavors as head gardener at Seattle University. Each happy story contains a nugget of gardening wisdom or a practical, helpful tip for home gardeners.
Growing Vegetables in Drought, Desert & Dry Times
by Maureen Gilmer
Here is the definitive guide to growing healthy organic vegetables without wasting our precious water resources! This incredibly timely book will give dedicated home gardeners the know-how to grow delicious produce in dry times, focusing on four different low-water conditions in the western US. Using modern techniques, as well as tips and stories from native traditions, this guide offers the best of ancient wisdom and the newest innovations in conservation, and includes varietal recommendations and a seasonal crop guide.
Growing Roses in the Pacific Northwest
by Nita-Jo Rountree
Many gardeners dream of filling their garden with lush, healthy roses—but growing roses can be tricky. Luckily this definitive guide takes you through every step, including choosing rose varietals for your climate, landscape design, planting, harvesting, and basic care, as well as invaluable tips for nurturing a show-stopping rose garden. With full-color illustrations of the 90 best cultivars for the region, this visual feast is a go-to resource for everyone; whether you are an urban gardener or have room to spread out, growing no-spray roses has never been easier!
Cass Turnbull’s Guide to Pruning, 3rd Edition
by Cass Turnbull
Prune trees, shrubs, and other plants with the knowledge that will make your plants grow in healthy and aesthetic ways. Covering 160 plants with clear instructions and illustrations, Cass Turnbull will show you exactly how to prune any plant in your garden. This is the new definitive guide for the home gardener with friendly, expert advice from the founder of Seattle’s PlantAmnesty, whose mission is “to end the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs caused by mal-pruning,” including their ten commandments for preventing mal-pruning and other gardening sins.
Ask Ciscoe
by Ciscoe Morris
In his first book, Ciscoe Morris answers 400 the most interesting, oft-asked, most urgent, and puzzling gardening questions. Even if Ciscoe’s signature exclamation “Oh-la-la!” (delivered with a thick Wisconsin accent) is completely disarming, do not underestimate his gardening chops: Master Gardener, certified arborist, teacher at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture. In these pages, he addresses the full range of issues from ornamental gardening and trees to vegetables, fruit trees, shrubs, lawns, containers, weeds, and more.
