Encyclopedia of garden plants for every location

I'M GRATEFUL TO MY FATHER for many things, particularly for the way he taught me to love the natural world. One morning, when I was a child, I excitedly pointed out a mysterious circle of lush, vibrant grass in our lawn, a pattern that seemed to have sprung up overnight. Thankfully, he didn't fill my head with facts about underground fungal mycelia. Instead, he told me about the fairies that came out to dance at midnight, carelessly leaving magical traces in the grass - fairy rings. This memory came back to me as I was reading Katrina Blair's charming and intelligent THE WILD wisdom OF WEEDS: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival (Chelsea Green, paper, $29.95). How do we learn to empathize with other creatures, to respect the web of life that connects us all? The answer must lie, at least in part, somewhere in the deeply pleasurable childhood experiences so many gardeners cherish, moments of gazing into the depths of a blossom or watching a tendril unfold - and falling under the spell of a tiny miracle. For Blair it came at the age of 11, after she had paddled across a mountain lake in Durango, Colo., then "walked barefoot through the mucky water filled with moss and lake weeds" to sit "among the wild mountain plants" and become "filled with an intense and completely joyful energy." When she finished high school, she lived in a wooden lean-to for the summer, foraging for wild edibles. A few years later, with a degree in holistic health education, she started a nonprofit group called Turtle Lake Refuge, intent on preserving 60 acres of wetland. She served wild-food lunches to raise money for the cause. As a "passionate advocate of the wild weed species," Blair took on the chemical herbicide culture in her town by starting an organic lawn-care service that specialized in using compost teas as fertilizer. And before too long, Durango found itself with its first three-acre chemical-free park. All this to help "support the immune health and survival of insect pollinators such as the honeybee and butterfly," to say nothing of protecting the children playing in the grass. It took years, but eventually Blair negotiated with city officials to adopt an organic managed-land program for all their parks. This is how one woman, with passionate and informed intensity, succeeded in changing her little piece of the world. Blair's chosen weeds include clover, dandelion, knotweed, mallow, purslane and thistle. Never mind that there's something arbitrary about opting for 13, much less something hyperbolic about insisting on how essential they are for survival - though one certainly could, if pressed, hang on for quite a while on nothing but amaranth and lambsquarter. And they too hang on in the face of great adversity. Weeds are, after all, usually the first line of defense for soil recovering from degradation. Blair culled her list with focused intention: 13 because that's the number of main hexagons on a turtle's shell, because in one year the moon is full 13 times and most women have 13 menstrual cycles, because our planet has 13 principal rivers. Don't let this turn you off. Blair's writing is grounded in something more solid than granola (though she does supply recipes for her weeds). And she delivers just about the best argument I've read for the futility of figuring out what, exactly, qualifies as a native plant and why "invasive" can be a flawed concept. Considering that birds, winds, waves and ancient peoples disbursed seed around the globe long before modern humans carried them, via airplane, in their pant cuffs, she points out that native plant designations are often simply an "arbitrary decision of timing as to when to close the door on nature's geographical distribution of species." Blair's 13 weeds have "extensive beneficial traits and wide availability," qualities that "set them apart from other plants." They're found all over the globe, from Japan to the Arctic Circle to Costa Rica. They're a source of optimal food, and they have a lot to teach us about adaptation and resilience. Weeds, she insists, are "examples of nature's creative edge." They're powerful ambassadors, here to support our quality of life. Purslane, along with clover, dandelions, lambsquarter and other things some might call weeds (or even invasive!), make an appearance in THE NEW AMERICAN HERBAL (Clarkson Potter, paper, $27.50), by Stephen Orr. This indispensable guide opens on a mid-November afternoon when Orr has been working in his cold, muddy New York garden, where the rosemary and lavender and thyme are still thriving. "Herbs tend to be tough by nature," he remarks, and that's why they're such gratifying garden citizens. They give and give. Orr's affection for herbs shines through every well-researched page of this book; his wonder and delight are infectious. Not only do herbs taste and smell delicious, but like the "proudly statuesque angelica," many occupy a prominent place in the formal garden. Marigolds, he writes, "seem to have elements of bitter citrus and coffee and take me right back to childhood summers in the Texas heat." The herb called woad has been cultivated since at least Roman times; ancient Celtic warriors were "painted blue-black with the pigment." "I try to always keep a scented geranium or two in my life," Orr confides. Like Katrina Blair, he scatters recipes throughout his chapters. And he knows that just because a book is useful and intelligent, it doesn't have to look scholarly and dull. Orr's beautiful photographs have an approachable aura of romance: He captures the dainty charm of chervil and makes me want to plant the handsome epazote just so I can prop it up in a vase - even if it does smell like motor oil. Orr offers tips on propagating, harvesting and drying techniques, some of which I had never previously encountered. (One of these, salt drying, works especially well with basil.) He covers Native American herbs like cardinal flower, which the Pawnee consider "a love medicine," and Chinese medicinal herbs like the roots of - wait a second - peonies? They're herbs? As Orr writes, "the broadest definition of the word 'herb' is a plant that people use." Next thing you know, we'll be reading that peonies are weeds. Medieval and Renaissance herbalists didn't bother to make formal distinctions between herbs and garden plants. Instead they worried, as Linnaeus later did, about such "paradoxa" as the seven-headed hydra - just one of the many handsome engravings in FLORA ILLUSTRATA: Great Works From the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden (New York Botanical Garden/Yale University, $50). The Mertz Library, up in the Bronx, one of the greatest collections in the world, is a cornerstone of the New York Botanical Garden, which was begun in 1891. Over the course of the next hundred years, donations came from institutions and community-minded citizens; today the library holds more than eight centuries of prints, engravings, watercolors and drawings - even illuminated pages, produced in Venice in 1483, of the work of Pliny the Elder. A public garden on a par with the best in the world, the New York Botanical Garden has always been a hub of civic and scientific activity. The likes of Andrew Carnegie and John Pierpont Morgan supported its growth. When, in 1926, the library was wired for electricity, Thomas Edison enlisted a botanist to join him in conducting experiments to see if plant fibers could be used as filaments in light bulbs. "Flora Illustrata" is both handsome and informative, with essays ranging from a survey of the great European herbals to a discussion of the development of a distinctly American landscape theory, beginning with the work of Andrew Jackson Downing. "No two languages can be more different than the gardening tongues of England and America," he wrote in 1850, ushering in a new way of cultivating garden styles. Downing celebrated the richness of America's botanical life (our 40 species of oak, for instance) and pointed out, long before today's xeriscaping trend, that extensive lawns were appropriate in moist, humid England but not in the hot, dry American summers. Not that anyone heeded. "Flora Illustrata" is a companion volume to an exhibition that runs through mid-January. Among its most intriguing images are a large cross section of an 1892 seed warehouse and a 1701 hand-colored engraving of the fascinating and hallucinogenic mandrake, often used in magic rituals - a drawing so vivid that one instantly sees the origin of the belief that it enhances fertility. I only wish the book were even longer, and I hope the New York Botanical Garden will produce a lavish display online (and not just a catalog). This is wealth that's easy to share in our digital era. One of the hardest things to learn about plants is how to make them happy while maintaining your own sanity. The Smithsonian, then, has done us a great service with the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDEN PLANTS FOR EVERY LOCATION (Dorling Kindersley, $40). Sure, this looks like a reshuffling of the deck, but what's wrong with making our fantasy lives a little less chaotic? There's something nice about being able to look only at a section called "Plants for Sandy Soil" - the curse, er, rather, condition, of my new garden. There are also sections describing plants for summer beds, fall leaf color, waterlogged sites, allergy sufferers, architectural foliage, weed-suppressing ground covers (uh-oh) and cool colors - if you happen to succumb to a Vita Sackville-West moment and hanker for your own white garden. In every gardener's life, the road divides, providing a chance to let go of old snobberies and discover new delights. My heart leapt when I saw AIR PLANTS: The Curious World of Tillandsias (Timber Press, paper, $19.95), by Zenaida Sengo. Ah-ha! I thought - magic! Plants that need no tending! Sadly, I was mistaken. These eccentric, beguiling organisms need quite a bit of misting and primping, and like most of us, they demand a good, long soak in the tub from time to time. They have limited root function and rely on their leaves for absorbing water. If you insist on calling the brown stuff we walk on "dirt" rather than soil, Tillandsias will delight. I gazed with no small lust in my heart at air plants perching in napkin rings, teacups or bull's horns, as styled by the book's artistic author. One real workhorse is THE MANUAL OF PLANT GRAFTING: Practical Techniques for Ornamentals, Vegetables, and Fruit (Timber Press, $39.95), by Peter T. MacDonald. It should be on every serious gardener's shelf. Admittedly, that may not be a huge number of gardeners in this age of easy ordering of plants via the Internet. But everyone should try grafting - "the act of uniting part of one plant with another so that they become a single plant" - at least once. It can be thrilling: I recall the proud twinkle in the eye of one friend as he showed off the unions he had made on his apple trees. MacDonald opens with a terrific section on the history of grafting, citing the earliest Greek and Roman experiments. In medieval arguments about grafting, however, Maimonides did not approve. Since much of this actual garden work will have to wait for spring, some impressive picture books promise a winter of browsing delight. GARDENS IN DETAIL: 100 Contemporary Designs (Monacelli, $45), by Emma Reuss, categorizes its subjects with a focus on art or color or composition - or by local style. I'm not sure how useful any of these distinctions will be to most of us, but if it allows a publisher to be more comfortable including French New Baroque and Swedish Country in the same volume, more power to the author. Reuss tries hard to make what are obviously estate-level plantings relevant, so her discussion of each garden concentrates on a few elements, some more successfully than others. I can wrap my mind around mass plantings of lavender, resulting in "rivers of subtly different lilacs and mauves weaving through the design" - or even a handsome wall "consisting of slag glass kept in place by an open metal framework," as in the Oregon beachside garden by Steven Koch. Even in the humblest garden, there's room for a moment or two of inspiration borrowed from the most esteemed practitioners. The desire to photograph and catalog the world's best gardens must be born of a poignant awareness that this is one of the most evanescent of arts. One brutal storm - or one real estate deal - might be all that stands between a landscape masterpiece and utter degradation. You could do worse than plan your travel itineraries around THE GARDENER'S GARDEN (Phaidon, $79.95), a sprawling worldwide compendium of more than 250 great gardens. This is a smorgasbord of a book, a platter offering delights - in small photographs - to tease the palate. I'm happy for an introduction to gardens in Australia and Pakistan, and delighted, too, for the passing nods at old favorites in Belgium, Italy and Britain. You will want to find other resources to dig deeper. Which takes US to GARDENS OF THE GARDEN STATE (Monacelli, $50). Not a single New Jersey garden in this gorgeous book made it into the aforementioned "world's outstanding gardens" - but that's only a reflection on the folly of suggesting that all of them can fit into a single book. Nancy Berner and Susan Lowry do a splendid job of motoring around their chosen territory and finding gems. Replicating the grounds of many of these gardens is, of course, beyond the means of most of us mere mortals, but they still offer ideas aplenty. I had to pat down the evil green genie of jealousy before I could admire Gemma and Andrew Ingalls's photographs of a Japanese-inspired path of gravel and flag, or a combination of Japanese maple and early-blooming Japanese spice-bush - or the pots of agave the deer don't eat. New Jersey, the authors remind us, is one of the smallest states in the nation, but the most densely populated. By odd coincidence, when "Gardens of the Garden State" arrived, I happened to be reading "The Pine Barrens." Published in 1968, John McPhee's haunting exploration of the mysterious 1.1 million-acre forest reserve in southern New Jersey isn't a garden book by any stretch, but it makes you appreciate the world from which gardens were first carved. It's important to remember the untamed nature that was our original Garden of Eden and how it retains a hold on the imagination. We excel at contradiction - one moment at home, awe-struck, in the wild, and another carving out geometric order to create beauty and feel safe. But whether we're knee-deep in dandelions or moon dancing on a manicured lawn, there's always a chance to find magic in the great outdoors. DOMINIQUE BROWNING is the senior director of Moms Clean Air Force. She blogs at SlowLoveLife.com.