New Books for Christmas?

Who got new gardening books for Christmas? What did you get? I got several including The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter, Through the Garden Gate, Four-Season Harvest and a couple of others.

Pinetree Garden Seeds is offering the American Rose Society's Encyclopedia of Roses for only $24.95. It's normally $40.00. I'll be ordering that along with my seeds in January as a late Christmas gift to myself. I also just ordered the January and February books for the Garden Bloggers' Bookclub from Amazon.com. I got them both at a reduced price plus free shipping for a grand total of $28.17. I just love a good bargain!

Five new books for Christmas, but just one on gardening: The $64 Tomato. I did manage to buy one for me while shopping for others, American Horticultural Society Garden Plants and Flowers, which I found at Borders for $4.99. Like you, OldRoses, I just can't pass up a bargain! I was really hoping for The Well-Tended Perennial Garden, but I'll have to source that one on my own.

Carol - You'll enjoy Four Season Harvest - Eliot Coleman does a good job of presenting the information.

I didn't get any gardening books (hardly any books at all) but I'm going to buy myself The well-tended perennial garden. The kids and I did a couple of bookstores today because they wanted to use their gift cards, but neither had it.

I finally got myself Trilliums by Frederick W. Case when I purchased Teaming with Microbes for the garden blog book club selection. Gotta buy enough to get free shipping from Amazon, don't you know. My sister asked for my Amazon wishlist but no books showed up, so I decided to make matters into my own hands. Tardis, I am surprised no one had The Well-Tended Perennial Garden as that is one of Timber Press's best sellers. Does anyone know what those green checks are next to the titles in the sidebar?

My guess is that the books in the sidebar are books mentioned in this thread and the ones that are checked are the ones in your library. For instance, for me only one is checked, "Teaming with Microbes", which is also the only one on the sidebar that I own. Does this hold true for anyone else?

OldRoses - You're right! I didn't respond to Kathy's question because I had no idea. I have three of the books listed, and all three have a check next to them.

FYI - If you want to add the books you discuss to the sidebar, you can use square brackets around a book title. Just using quotation marks won't do it. I'm trying to do an example, but the moment I type brackets - even with quotes or parentheses around them - LT is recognizing it as a touchstone. Anyway, try it with a book we haven't discussed yet, and you'll see that it turns into a link and is added to the sidebar.

Talbin, I edited my first comment and while LT recognized the touchstone, it didn't add it to the sidebar. Interesting . . .

OldRoses - I can see the items you added - maybe there is some delay, or you need to re-login. Sometimes there are goofy things with LT - I've had a problem with reviews showing up in the past few days.

Thank you, Old Roses, for solving that mystery for me, as well. I think the touchstone didn't work with your first entry because you had an apostrophe and an s that wasn't in the original title. Try again, spelling the title exactly. In a later entry you mention Teaming with Microbes but you have it in quotes, which also doesn't work. Sometimes you need to refresh your page to see your edits. I know that it keeps posts that I've read marked as unread until I refresh the page. But I also agree with Talbin that not everything in LT works as it should, but they are usually trivial things. I have been trying to track activity in this group by using RSS feeds, but not everything seems to show up in the feed.

I am bumping this thread up because pretty soon you'll know the answer to this for the 2007 Holiday Season. I know reading_fox, talbin, and I all participated in SantaThing, the secret Santa program for LibraryThing. Did anyone else? I know I found out about it because I subscribe to the newsletter, and the LT blog feed.

For me it was Heritage Gardens: The World's Great Gardens Saved by Restoration - superb illustrations and full of archival detail and plans as well as the history of the gardens. Since we're in a cold snap here in Edinburgh, it'll be ideal for afternoons in front of the fire.

I'm interested in the book "Trillums". Is it worth buying? I love trilliums, but I have only one trillium in my garden. At least I had one in autum. Plants are quite expensive and I am of the opinion that they are difficult to grow.

Hi Memmuli

Trilliums grow wild in the woods around here, but it's hard to get them to live in a garden. A neighbor gave me some advice that has helped.
In the Autumn or when the leaves die down, there is a "bud" that forms just above the ground & stays over the winter & then in spring, the stem & leaves uncurl.
That "bud" is really super tender & if it gets stepped on or disturbed, it dies & the whole plant never comes back. The best way I have dealt with this is to put a little fence around the trilliums which I have in my wild flower garden. I also sprinkle leaves over them. They like leaf mold & compost. I dig them from the woods when the flowers have wilted. They spread around 7 some will die out after a few years so I never know the exact spot they will come up in, so I try to be very careful, with rake, lawn mower, backing golf cart over them (They HATE that) They grow so easily in the wild, but are really fussy in the garden.

MarianV, thank you for your answer. Trillum lives with and under my dearest 'Haaga' rhododendron. I just wonder does trilliums prefer acidity or alcalinity? In the soil I mean. (Please excuse my poor english garden terminology. I tried to find right words, but im not sure are those fine words soil terms or laboratory terms ;-)

Memmuli, Trilliums prefer a medium soil, my garden book says more acid, but the soil in our area is limestone (a little bit alkaline) & the Trilliums still grow. They should do fine under your rhododendren where there is also shade. Acidity & alkalinity can be used both for soil terms & laboratory terms.