The British are coming, the British are coming — and for gardeners, that's a good thing.
This spring sees the publication in America of two British gardening volumes relied on by millions of British gardeners.
British writers, gardening and otherwise, claiming a beachhead on our shores is nothing new. But it says something about the growing sophistication of American gardeners that an American publisher would discern an audience for these volumes, part of an ongoing series by British gardening writers Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix.
"Annuals & Biennials: The Definitive Reference" ($24.95) and "Perennials: The Definitive Reference" ($49.95), both by Phillips and Rix, have just been published by Firefly Books. Accompanied by a new primer by a local garden writer, they will put the restless gardener's mind into overdrive.
The organization of "Annuals & Biennials" is somewhat idiosyncratic. Plants are grouped under their common names — poppies, wallflowers, stocks, etc. Within each category, plants are listed in alphabetical order by their Latin names. If you just want to look up a single plant, go to the index.
What you want to do is take a stroll through this book. Under impatiens, there are 22 listings, most of which you will never have heard of, much less encountered in a local nursery.
Phillips started out as a photographer for natural-history field guides, and he lavishes just as much attention on the weediest version of a particular kind of flower in its wild habitat as he does its highly bred cousin. Annuals are hot now. Inform yourself and then start feeding some of these names into your computer's search engine, or browse some of the many catalogs and Web sites for seed companies. Prepare to be overwhelmed with possibilities.
"Perennials" takes a similar approach, but groups its offerings by season of the year — a logical approach for plants that typically only bloom for a portion of the growing season.
It's possible to get entirely carried away by these books — a good reality check is a new book by a local author devoted to plants that are happy in our 10 months of rain and gray, two months of sun and drought climate. "Plant Life: Growing a Garden in the Pacific Northwest" by Valerie Easton (Sasquatch Books, $19.95) will keep your feet firmly planted on our soggy, acidic earth.
"Plant Life" is a compilation of Easton's columns in The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Sunday magazine. She's also the horticultural librarian for the Miller Library of the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture
Because Easton wrote these columns for a newspaper, she has developed a sure touch in conveying a specialist's information in terms a general reader can understand. The combination of expert advice delivered accessibly makes for a satisfying read. The combination of Easton's prose and the beautiful and informative photographs of Richard Hartlage, director/curator of the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle, is a formidable one.
Easton's picks for her favorite plants tend toward shrubs, trees, perennials and bulbs that flourish in the Northwest. I've read Easton's columns every week since its beginnings, but the by-the-month format of this book knits her knowledge into a continuous whole that enables you to think and plan and dream.
