Spree.

I did my small part to aid the consumer-driven economic recovery with a recent trip to Half-Price Books. The store on this side of town always has a terrific selection of gardening books, and I walked out with the following armload:

Armitage's Garden Perennials: A Color Encyclopedia. Allan M. Armitage. (Timber Press, 2000. ISBN 0-88192-435-0.) I've always wanted this well-known essential reference, which is going to make a handsome (albeit well-thumbed) bookend paired with "the Dirr" (Jamaica Kincaid's term). Brand-new, half-price, for this baby. But there was more...

Midwest Gardens. Pamela Wolfe (photographs by Gary Irving). (Chicago Review Press, 1991. ISBN 1-55652-138-3). I borrowed this book from the public library last year and, with successive renewals to the max, kept it around for 4 months of reading and re-reading. Mint condition, quarter-price...snapped it up. And moved on to...

The Flamboyant Garden. Elisabeth Sheldon (photographs by Dency Kane). (Henry Holt and Company, 1997. ISBN ISBN 0-8050-3798-5.) What a thrill to come across another work by Elisabeth Sheldon so soon after enjoying her Time and the Gardener. In this book, she describes her creation of a "hot-color" garden...right up this color-craver's alley. And then there was...

Redoute's Roses. Pierre-Joseph Redoute. (Taschen, 2001. ISBN 3-8228-1356-7.) Beautiful illustrations of old garden roses (including Rosa x Harisonii, the "Yellow Rose of Texas"), so entrancing that I may even be lured into trying to grow some. Then, finally...

Gardener's Delight. John Seymour (illustrations by Peter Morter). (Harmony Books, 1979. ISBN 0-517-53805-9.) A charming (not to mention "delight"ful) collection of garden lore (shall we call them "rural legends"?) on more than a dozen vegetables, fruits and herbs. The cover provides the best description of its contents, once you adjust to the old-style font (for a split second, it appears to read: "Containing the Defcription, Place, Time, Names, Nature, Hiftorie & Vertues of all manner of Fruits of the Earth for the growing & confuming thereof")...have no fear; the text within the book itself is conventionally printed.

Must...go...back for more...very, very soon.

Comments

[Annie in Austin]

I hope you don't mind if I comment on this older post, popped out by Google on a search for Jamaica Kincaid. I'm reading Jamaica Kincaid's 'My Garden Book' and was wondering if anyone else was reading it.

The name Pamela Wolfe is a sweet memory from my previous life in Illinois. My copy of her "Midwest Gardens" book is falling apart from its use in the years prior to 1999, and the title page bears an inscription from Pam, who was kind enough to sign my copy at a talk she gave.

I was lucky enough to visit a few of the gardens on tours, including 7 or 8 strolls through Trudi Temple's garden. Trudi was my inspiring angel back in Illinois!

Annie