Re: What books to buy?

I love to scour used bookstores or remainder stores for gardening books.  I
always go to the gardening section first...and if it's up or down stairs
I bitch a bit and don't return :-).

Sure there are a bunch of books that are great that you can go out of your
way to buy, but as people pointed out, that gets expensive.  I just search
around for the cheap ones.

I start with the Sunset Western Garden book.  To me that's a must have and
I pay for it new (okay, not full price; I bought it at Costco).

Then I look for books with good descritpions and good pictures.  This is
usually different sets of books.  I have several great books of plants for
my climate with color pictures but not great descritions.  And I have
several great books of plants with full and useful descriptions but not a
lot of pictures.

One of the best for pictures is put out by the East Bay Municiple Utilities
District (water company).  It's all of low water plants but includes lots
of natives and Medit plants.  You can sometimes find it used in local
bookstores (I did).  Or you can order it from them directly.  Not sure if
they'll sell out of state but it's worth a shot.  http://www.ebmud.com/

In fact, many water companies put out good picture books of plants (with
full botantical and common names and some basic desciption) that save
water.  This means natives or adapted to the native climate.  So check out
yours and neighboring ones.

Cyndi

_______________________________________________________________________________
Oakland, California            Zone 9 USDA; Zone 16 Sunset Western Garden Guide
Chemically sensitive/disabled - Organic Gardening only by choice and neccessity
_______________________________________________________________________________
"There's nothing wrong with me.  Maybe there's                     Cyndi Norman
something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG)           cyndi@consultclarity.com
                                                 http://www.consultclarity.com/
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