Poundridge Nurseries, Inc. - Blog

It’s winter time and what’s a gardener to do? Cold winds blow outside and snow covers the ground as night time temperatures drop into the teens and twenties. Snow and cold, however, is fine by me. I grew up in a Midwestern state where winter starts in early November and spring doesn’t show any sign of arriving until the end of April, so I am used to hunkering down for a long winter gardener’s nap.

January feels like the quietest time of the year because once all the hubbub of the holidays has passed all we have to look forward to is crossing off those eighty date boxes on the calendar until the first day of spring. Though this down time may prove painful for gardeners, there is an easy way to keep our thumbs green through the dark months–and I don’t mean by snowbirding to Florida. In fact, you can keep your inner gardener alive in the comfort of your own home, nestled in a cozy chair by a fire, (I sit at my drawing table in the designers building here at the nursery) by reading books about gardening.

The canon of good books written by talented gardeners is filled with wonderful works for everyone. The authors range from the ancient (Theophrastus) to the legendary (Vita Sackville-West) to bestselling contemporaries (Jamaica Kincaid). Garden books, like gardens, come in different styles, such as the comedic tales of Bevery Nichols in “Merry Hall” to the philosophical musings of Thoreau in “Faith in a Seed.” Then there are the beautiful garden picture books, the best of which complement their inspirational photography with the insightful prose of experts.

I typically read four or five garden books at a time. Right now I’m in the middle of “Parks, Plants, and People” by New York City public garden designer, Lynden Miller. Also on my stack is John Greenlee’s “The American Meadow Garden” which is filled with awesome photos by my favorite garden photographer, Saxon Holt. Always nearby is “The Patchwork Garden,” given to me personally by the author, and my neighbor, Sydney Eddison. And to maintain my scientific bragging rights, I dip into a book called “Life in the Soil” by University of Illinois Biology professor, James B. Nardi. I bounce between these books when I take a break from working on design drawings–hands down THE BEST winter pastime for a garden designer.

Losing myself in garden books makes the wait for plant and seed catalogs to arrive in the mail a whole lot easier.(More about them in my next posting.) and as the catalogs slowly stack up on my kitchen table I begin to believe that January will end after all, bringing us one month closer to what every gardener longs for…a real spring thaw.

We’d like to hear what books (gardening or otherwise) you are reading this winter. Send us a comment with some titles and we will share them on this website.

By Daryl Beyers