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Photo Credit: David L. Morgan

The almanac’s sturdy, high-gloss cover makes it virtually garden-proof, as well as gives it a lovely coffee-table-worthy appearance.

Do you have a favorite garden book? Mine is Doug Welsh’s Texas Garden Almanac (Texas A&M University Press). It’s new, 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.

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.

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Aletha St. Romain’s detailed watercolors beautifully illustrate the Texas Garden Almanac.

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.