Is the Bloom Off the Rose?

by Natalie Danford -- Publishers Weekly, 2/26/2007

For PW's Web-exclusive list of gardening titles, please click here.

There's a sense among publishers that gardening books are the poor relation in the gardening business these days. "What's interesting is that if you look at the amount of money people are spending on gardens, garden accessories and outdoor furniture, there's no doubt that gardening is a robust area," says Clarkson Potter's editorial director, Doris Cooper. "But books in the category are downtrending." The press is now publishing only one or two carefully selected gardening titles each year.

Firefly publisher and president Lionel Koffler agrees: "The category is struggling now, with retailers despondent that book sales are declining, yet the public pours billions into gardens and garden tools, plants and landscaping." Why the contrast? Koffler attributes it partly to the fact that gardeners are experienced and increasingly sophisticated, and they don't need general introductions any more. He also laments that few bookstores have staff who are knowledgeable about gardening trends. The category's current lack of growth stands in sharp contrast to what Koffler describes as "a wildly successful 20-year ride from 1978 to about 2000."

"The days of the big bestseller in this category seem to be over," agrees Sterling publisher Charles Nurnberg.

Marie Iannotti, who runs the gardening site on About.com, where she regularly reviews books, says that from where she sits, growth in gardening as a hobby has leveled off. Still, she receives many inquiries from new gardeners. "They are interested now in some new things—small gardens, urban gardens and growing vegetables, as opposed to ornamentals," she says. "Designing big gardens seems to have faded, but people with small bits of space still want to utilize it as best they can. Container gardening"—plants in pots rather than in the ground—"is growing rapidly."

Although the National Gardening Association recently reported tersely on the current state of affairs— "For most people today, if an activity doesn't come with a remote control or a keyboard, they're not really interested"—publishers of gardening books remain hopeful, aware that fallow seasons often lead to bountiful ones. The following new titles typify the positive outlook of a number of publishers.

TITLE: 37 Houseplants Even You Can't Kill

AUTHOR: Mary Kate Hogan

PUBLISHER: Sterling (Apr., $9.95)

FIRST PRINTING: 7,500

SOW WHAT? With a petite size and price, this handy, photo-packed paperback aims squarely for a specific niche that is, by definition, underserved by the gardening category: nongardeners. Says publisher Michael Fragnito, "This is the perfect book for anyone pressed for time and pressed for space. Even someone with a black thumb will easily be able to select and care for great-looking houseplants."

TITLE: Crops in Pots: How to Plan, Plant, and Grow Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs in Easy-Care Containers

AUTHOR: Bob Purnell

PUBLISHER: Reader's Digest (Mar., $19.95)

FIRST PRINTING: 20,000

SOW WHAT? It builds on a trend with a proven track record. Executive editor Dolores York explains: "Our readers continue to tell us they love gardening in containers, yet Crops in Pots differs from other container books because it offers planting options grouped around a culinary theme that includes vegetables, fruits and herbs nestled among flowering plants."

TITLE: The Way We Garden Now: 41 Pick-and-Choose Projects for Planting Your Paradise Large or Small

AUTHOR: Katherine Whiteside

PUBLISHER: Clarkson Potter (Feb., $29.95)

FIRST PRINTING: 25,000 (and already gone back to press)

SOW WHAT? The author has star power and a broad platform. "For years Katherine Whiteside wrote House Beautiful's Garden Goddess column," reports editorial director Doris Cooper, "and she forged corporate partnerships with big companies like Land Rover and Smith & Hawken, who put her on the road, giving lectures to gardeners and other outdoorsy types. She has a real following among all types of plant lovers."

TITLE: Small Buildings, Small Gardens: Creating Gardens Around Structures

AUTHOR: Gordon Hayward

PUBLISHER: Gibbs Smith (Mar., $29.95)

FIRST PRINTING: 7,000

SOW WHAT? "Small Buildings, Small Gardens presents a unique approach to blending built structure and greenery," says editorial director Suzanne Taylor. "It goes beyond plantings into architecture as an element. There's a growing trend in the home and garden market to create living spaces outdoors, adding elements that you might expect to find inside the home rather than in the garden."

TITLE: Compost

AUTHOR: Ken Thompson

PUBLISHER: DK (Feb., $18)

FIRST PRINTING: 10,000

SOW WHAT? Therese Burke, senior v-p of sales and marketing, says this hardcover, which comes robed in a cunning corrugated cardboard jacket, has potential appeal far beyond the usual gardening audience. "With the publication of Compost," she says, "we've recognized that the single-subject esoteric garden companion can be a practical guide or a reader for the environmentally conscious and curious."

TITLE: Rodale's Vegetable Garden Problem Solver: The Best and Latest Advice for Beating Pests, Diseases, and Weeds and Staying a Step Ahead of Trouble in the Garden

AUTHOR: Fern Marshall Bradley

PUBLISHER: Rodale (Feb., $19.95)

FIRST PRINTING: 20,000

SOW WHAT? This paperback reference presents a copious amount of practical information in orange-and-green text and drawings of everything from cutworm feeding damage to easy blanching techniques for vegetable preserving. Senior editor Karen Bolesta says, "This title addresses the reality that most gardeners face when growing vegetables—not every vegetable crop is a success. The book's problem-solving theme is actually approached from a positive angle."

TITLE: Tending Your Garden: A Year-Round Guide to Garden Maintenance

AUTHORS: Gordon and Mary Hayward

PUBLISHER: Norton (Feb., $39.95)

FIRST PRINTING: 15,000

SOW WHAT? Plenty of gardening books offer suggestions for getting started, but then what? Maintenance takes up an estimated 75% of a gardener's time, but is not nearly as frequently addressed. Prolific author Gordon Hayward (see also Small Buildings, Small Gardens, p. 46) and his wife and fellow gardener, Mary Hayward, answer what Norton editor-in-chief Starling Lawrence terms the "very specific questions" Hayward hears on the lecture circuit about such tasks as pruning, weeding and repairing stone walls.

Really Big Books

If heft counts for anything, Firefly's The Plant Finder: The Right Plants for Every Gardenis the big book of the season, weighing in at five pounds one ounce. At 992 pages and a price of $49.95, the hardcover lists more than 5,000 plants—organized by major plant groups—and contains 1,600 color photographs.

Yet the title, which will enjoy a 20,000-copy first printing, could have been even bigger. Firefly publisher and president Lionel Koffler reports, "The content is actually condensed from a 1,500-page book of twice the dimensions." Number of pages aside, the book is surprisingly portable, with a 6½"×8/" trim size. Says Koffler, "We wanted to make a book that had a huge amount of useful information, yet make it a reference you could put in your purse or backpack to take to the garden center." Mission accomplished.

And in this corner, weighing four pounds seven ounces with 960 pages, more than 800 photographs and a price of $34.99, is 1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die,edited by Rae Spencer-Jones and being published by Barron's in March.

"The length reflects our desire to include the multitude of garden types and styles," says editorial director Mark Miele, who notes that the title goes far beyond the usual "English" and "Italian" gardens to include such sites as Margitsziget in Budapest—formerly an area where lepers were quarantined—and a landscaped municipal cemetery in Ecuador.

Though our next challenger offers a mere 352 pages, Dream Gardens: 100 Inspirational Gardens comes in at a substantial four pounds nine ounces. Just out from Merrell Publishers, this 9"×11½" volume, like the Barron's title, traverses the globe in search of horticultural splendor, from Wartnaby Gardens in Leicestershire, England to La Mortola on the French Riviera to Kennerton Green in New South Wales, Australia.—Natalie Danford

Going Organic

Composting and soil enrichment may seem like daunting tasks, but a new crop of titles suggests more gardeners are ready to toss their chemicals in favor of techniques like these.

"Organic is time and money saving; it's working with, not against, nature," says Pam Art, president of Storey Publishing. Vegetable gardeners, she notes, have led the charge to refocus on old-fashioned, earth-friendly techniques. That new emphasis means publishing will likely shift from books on the "perfect" lawn and garden to books about maintaining low-maintenance and chemical-free spaces. Accordingly, several spring titles demystify the tenets of organic growing, for traditional farmers looking to transition to organic, hobby growers aiming to become pros, or private gardeners and lawn-care enthusiasts.

Large- and small-scale professional growers might begin with Growing Green: Organic Techniques for a Sustainable Future (Chelsea Green, Apr.) by Jenny Hall and Iain Tolhurst, a guide to following organic standards, particularly methods that avoid the use of slaughterhouse manure and by-products, called stockfree. For professional information on certification, organic animal husbandry, regulations and even marketing strategy, there's Organic Farming: Everything You Need to Know (Voyageur, Apr.) by Peter Fossel.

For hobby gardeners, radio hosts Doug Oster and Jessica Walliser offer Grow Organic: Over 250 Tips and Ideas for Growing Flowers, Veggies, Lawns and More... for First-timers and Old-timers Alike (St. Lynn's, Apr.). The book collects quick tips as well as in-depth discussion of organic gardening techniques from companion planting to organic pest control. Bob Flowerdew's Organic Garden Basics: Five Easy Steps to Growing Organically (Hamlyn [Sterling, dist.], Apr.) compiles numerous illustrations and advice on soil improvement, plant selection and seasonal maintenance, including a chapter on a year in the life of an organic garden.

Finally, a "green" lawn takes on new meaning in The Organic Lawn Care Manual by former organic lawn–care entrepreneur Paul Tukey (Storey, Feb.), which, among other points, advocates nourishing the soil and planting climate-appropriate grass cultivars. The book also suggests the sensible but revolutionary idea of simply living with the occasional benign bug. Perhaps there's a larger lesson in that.
—Michelle Wildgen

Lawn Day's Journey

According to the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Americans spend close to $40 billion a year on lawn care—and that's a lot of green. In the paperback reprint of American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn (Norton, Apr.), author Ted Steinberg sums up this al fresco obsession: "Although there are plenty of irrational aspects to life in modern America, few rival the odd fixation on lawns.... To spend hundreds of hours mowing your way to a designer lawn is to flirt, most would agree, with a bizarre form of fanaticism."

Quirk Books publisher David Borgenicht offers two reasons for the fanaticism: "Mowing your lawn is to gardening as barbecuing is to cooking—it's a pretty masculine pastime. Plus, if you live in a subdivision, you most likely live in a house that looks like your neighbor's. Having a nice lawn and landscaping is a way to one-up the Joneses." Quirk takes a tactile approach to its Lawnscapes: Mowing Patterns to Make Your Yard a Work of Art, a June release by landscape artist David Parfitt that sports an Astroturf front cover. The grassy permutations are organized according to difficulty—from basic (Checkerboard, Bull's-eye) to intermediate (Celtic Knotwork) to advanced (Christmas Tree) to Mowing a Masterpiece (Eagle, Abstract Art).

Lawn Geek: Tips and Tricks for the Ultimate Turf from the Guru of Grass (NAL Trade Paperback, Mar.) is by Trey Rogers, dubbed by USA Today"a celebrity in the land of lawns." And well he should be, given his day job as professor of crop and soil sciences at Michigan State University. The author's take on lawn mania: "It's one of your possessions that is always on display for public view. It cannot go on vacation or hide from public view when things go awry, and it is always a work in progress." Among Rogers's sage observations is that 70% of all lawn-care problems are attributable to mowing.

Quarry Books plays into a brand name with its May publication of John Deere Landscaping & Lawn Care: The Complete Guide to a Beautiful Yard Year-Round by Kristen Hampshire, an illustrated reference work that offers practical information and "inspiring weekend projects."

Three other new releases also count on brand-name recognition. Just out this month from Scotts is the second edition of Lawns: Your Guide to a Beautiful Yard, for which one of the contributing writers is David Mellnor, a groundskeeper for the Boston Red Sox. (Was top-quality turf a factor in the team's recent world championship?) Another February title, Lawn-Problem Solver, is from Ortho, featuring waterproof, wipe-clean pages that let readers/mowers "take this guide straight to the problem area." And Lawns 1-2-3, out next month from the Home Depot, promises to "turn ordinary lawns into neighborhood showplaces."

Finally, those tired of caring for the lawn might consider it as a source of income. True to its name, Entrepreneur Press offers a newly revised edition of Start Your Own Lawn Care or Landscaping Business by Eileen Figure Sandlin (May). Gentlemen, start your mowers.—Dick Donahue

No Seeds Required

Northern plant lovers pine for spring, when they can again dirty their hands in the garden. Down South, such opportunities await all year long. But there are also enthusiasts preferring to remain indoors, their fingernails soil-free. For them, reading about gardening and nature is the enterprise that thrives.

A Natural History of North American Trees: An Environmental Classic(Houghton Mifflin/Frances Tenenbaum, Apr.) by Donald Culross Peattie targets this reader by combining two books published over half a century ago by HM (A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America [1950] and ...of Western Trees[1953]). Loathe to let the books go out of print, Tenenbaum opted to wed them, condense the text a bit and create a gift edition. "I took out the least known trees," she says, "and I removed the field guide notes. I think there'll be a whole new audience of younger people because it's not only a natural history. It's a cultural history, too." More than 100 tree species covered by Peattie include beeches Audubon painted and tulip trees that Daniel Boone hollowed out for canoes.

Some of the most passionate gardeners are mad for roses. Aurelia C. Scott calls them Otherwise Normal People, the title of her May book from Algonquin, which is subtitled Inside the Obsessive and Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening. "We're calling this Word Freak for gardeners," says editor Antonia Fusco, referring to Stefan Fatsis's 2001 profile of Scrabble competitors. Scott's monomaniacal rosarians vie for honors at national contests in June and again in September. "We've got a lot of colorful personalities here," Fusco adds, "and a strong narrative like this will find its market of those looking for books that let them feel active in the garden by reading about it instead of actually doing it."

This month Plume reprints Beautiful Madness by James Dodson, which was originally published by Dutton last March. Dutton publisher Brian Tart calls the book "an armchair gardener's guide to the expert gardeners of the world." Dodson, a devotee himself, visited flower shows in Philadelphia and London's Chelsea, smuggled cuttings from Monticello, even journeyed with plant hunters to Africa searching for new species.

Shining a literary light on the subject, Antique Collectors' Club will distribute a boxed set of The Royal Horticultural Society Treasury of Garden Writing and Treasury of Garden Verse(Frances Lincoln, Apr.). Offering observations on a vast crop of vegetation are such heavy lifters as Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Christopher Lloyd and Beth Chatto.—Robert Dahlin