General Gardening Book Recommendations

I've been asked to recommend a good "general purpose" gardening book for someone who wants to know the basics of flowers & shrubs and when to do various tasks. This would be for someone gardening in zone 6. Does anyone have any suggestions?

A lot of times, the books about techniques are not the same books that profile the plants. Two books that are good on what-to-do-when are Janet Macunovich's Caring for Perennials and The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. I see on amazon that Janet has some new books out that also might address your question. I believe she gardens in the Detroit area so might not be Zone 6, but I have always found her to be a very practical, knows-what-it-takes writer. American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants is a good all-around reference for plants and shrubs, though it doesn't go into great detail on any specific plant.

I am probably not the best person to be giving recommendations for USDA Zone 6, as I am two zones colder.

I'm 3 zones colder and I don't seem to have any general books anyway (except the Chatelaine's Gardening Book which is old and out of print), but there's a big Better Homes and Gardens one that looks ok on the surface (haven't looked at it properly).

Jane

I like The American Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Gardening edited by Christopher Brickell. It is my go-to book for general gardening questions, covering everything from design, perennials, mulch, division, compost, vegetables, fruit, containers, indoor plants - you name it, it seems to be there. It seems to be geared toward a warmer zone than mine (4), so it may work well for someone in zone 6.

My favorite general gardening book is The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch. This is an older book, but probably the most complete for both learning basic gardening practices and getting to know different kinds of plants.

I'll second ColdClimateGardening's recommendation of Janet Macunovich. Detroit is in zone 6, so her books are perfect.

It is hard to find a good comprehensive guidebook on gardening - after I started to write for my website I realized why- writing anything like that is a huge project ( first I was a gardener- then an Ohio gardener- finally a Central Ohio gardener, pretty soon a sand box gardener, I think).

I had a really old -falling apart old- book that I just loved:
The Rockwells Complete Guide to Gardening . I used to reference that for everything, but good luck finding a copy of something that was published in the sixties.

Most books now have too many beautiful color pictures, even though I love that it doens't leave room for all the info needed.

Looks like its out there:
Rockwells' Complete Guide to Successful Gardening

Hi Reflectingpool,

I'm zone 5 here in Illinois. Will Rockwell's be a good reference book for me?