My List of Gardening Books – Part 1

It goes without saying… anyone who knows me understands my insatiable need for doing topic research. It doesn’t matter if it’s on bicycles, search engine marketing strategies, or gardening. When I decide to learn about something, I’m all in. 150%

The learning process on most anything becomes part of an unexplored world that’s calling out to me. I cannot get enough, and there always seems to be more on the topic than meets the eye. Everything has varying layers, different angles, multiple options, expanded histories, long-range strategies, new ideas, etc. When we bought our new home in 1996 it was a blank slate. I could do whatever cool gardens I wanted. But I knew that my current knowledge on the topic was limited and I really wanted to do things right. What does all this lead to? Well, for me when it came to gardening, I couldn’t get enough books.

Books, books, books.

Amazon.com and I developed a deep understanding of each other and we truly bonded. Over the course of about 5 years I went on a book buying spree. I haven’t counted them up, but I’ll bet I have anywhere from 50 to 100 books on gardening. The topics vary from plant types for Colorado, to landscape and hardscape projects, to garden design ideas.

I do have my favorites. Ones I refer to again and again. Invaluable resources that always provide just the right information and never seem to steer you wrong. These books inspired me to create the gardens that have given my family (and my neighbors) a great deal of pleasure and joy to look at.

I’ve decided to share my long list of books with you, in hopes that you’ll find them just as wonderful and as helpful as I do. I’ll be breaking this down into multiple posts, though. I don’t want to overwhelm you. Also, it might seem like I’m less of a crazy-gardening-woman if you don’t see the sheer volume in a single post. LOL!

Let’s start here with some of my favorites:

Top dogs in my library for this first post. These have the most dog-eared pages and post it notes -

Passionate Gardening (Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor – two fabulous Colorado gardeners, although I think Lauren has since moved to New Mexico or someplace like that)
The Undaunted Garden (Lauren Springer)
Perennial All Stars ( Jeff Cox)
Perennial Combinations – Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right from the Start
Ideas For Your Garden (Reader’s Digest)
The Big Book of Garden Design (Time Life Books)
Xeriscape Colorado – The Complete Guide
Best Perennials for the Rocky Mountain and High Plains

As far a magazine subscriptions that keep me enticed and always coming back for more:

Better Homes and Gardens - Garden, Deck, and Landscape series
Sunset – they also have a great series of varying topic specific books. For example, 2 that I have in my first list are “Backyard Makeovers” and “Secret Gardens”
Horticulture

The rest of this group is in no particular order.