Do you have a favorite garden book? Mine is Doug Welsh’s Texas Garden Almanac (Texas A&M University Press). It was published in 2007, and it reminds me month-by-month, from January to December, of just about everything I need to do in my garden.
The almanac’s sturdy, high-gloss cover makes it virtually garden-proof, as well as gives it a lovely coffee-table-worthy appearance.
Photo Credit: David L. Morgan
Aletha St. Romain’s detailed watercolors beautifully illustrate the Texas Garden Almanac.
Photo Credit: David L. Morgan
With their exfoliating bark, crape myrtles can be damaged by glyphosate-containing herbicides, as Doug points out in his tips for gardeners.
Photo Credit: David L. Morgan
Up-to-date and informative, Texas Garden Almanac outperforms – and outweighs – any other gardening book I have in my library. But don’t be misled by the title. Its scope is much broader than Texas. In fact, gardeners in New Mexico, Arizona or Southern California (and most other hot, dry parts of the US) should find it useful, too. It’s an all-around how-to-do-it garden manual for the Southwest.
What I like about it is that each month’s recommendations are written in essays. I enjoy reading, and Doug’s commentaries are interesting and informative – well-written, too, I might add.
The book is also easy to navigate. It’s nicely laid out in a comfortable, well-spaced typeface, and the author’s illustrator, artist Aletha St. Romain, faithfully reproduces her subjects. (I wish she had illustrated my systematics manual when I was studying plant taxonomy!) Her line drawing of thrips looks like a photo. Her black spot on a rose leaf makes you want to grab a fungicide. And her painting of a cardinal on a dogwood branch appears as if the bird is about to fly off the page. (My favorite is Bambi’s mother consuming ‘Belinda’s Dream’ rose.) I must say, you’d enjoy this book even if you weren’t a gardener!
Each month has its theme. For example, March’s theme is “Vegetable Gardening Is for Everyone,” in which the author explains how you can plant a tomato or two in a flower bed, grow a pepper plant in a whisky barrel, set out a row of leaf lettuce in a flower border, plant a pole bean vine next to a trellis, and put kale or cabbage en masse next to your petunias. Where else would you get these ideas?
Doug also includes great charts, tables and diagrams. Some tell you the maturity times of garden vegetables, when to plant the best varieties, how to identify and manage pest problems, where to place your vegetable garden and trees that show fall color.
He also has an entire chapter devoted to Texas (or Southwestern) heat, with recommendations on water conservation, plant selection, lawn care, desert gardening, efficiency in irrigation, appropriate lawn maintenance, and “mulch” more.
Do you understand the processes of photosynthesis and respiration, and how 100-foot-tall trees transport water to their highest leaves? A chapter called “Thinking Like a Plant” is a great read and quick study that can transform you into an amateur plant physiologist in no time at all. You also need to check out why you shouldn’t apply a glyphosate-containing herbicide near the base of your crape myrtle. (Hint: Glyphosate can be absorbed through the exfoliated trunk and enters the conductive tissues of the tree. Get the picture?)
And speaking of crape myrtles, if you love this great tree, you must read the passage on how the first natural hybrid occurred between the two species, Lagerstroemia indica and Lagerstroemia fauriei, as a random cross in a famous horticulturist’s back yard. That great crape myrtle cultivar became ‘Basham’s Party Pink’ – ever heard of it?
Picky editor and writer that I am, I did find areas for correction. In his next printing, I would hope some grammatical errors and misspellings could be righted, and it would be useful to include an accompanying CD that might elucidate the author’s discussions. (One of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen is Doug demonstrating how to “prune” antique roses with a very large hedge trimmer!)
At its reasonable price ($24.95), Doug Welsh’s Texas Garden Almanac is quite a bargain, and it should be placed in a visible location in your home – like on a coffee table. Not only is the book attractive, it’s durable. The pages are high-grade, semi-gloss, and the cover is one of those new flexible, semi-hardbacks that you won’t scratch when you drop it in the wheelbarrow. Texas Garden Almanac is indeed a “garden calendar on steroids” (the author’s cogent description).
Finally, I am comforted by Doug’s Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for gardeners – especially No. 10: “I will use pesticides only when absolutely necessary, and if I do, I will use the least toxic ones.” That should really be No. 1 – for all of us.
