Category: Book Reviews

I have been waiting for a gardening book like Joe Seals’ Back to the New Basics for quite a long time. Thankfully, he has not burdened us with rote lists of seasonal to-do tasks that tire us out before we even get to them. Seals knows we hanker for knowledge and practices that help us get the desired outcomes we want in the garden. And chief on the list is this: what makes a garden hum and thrum with liveliness and beauty? What is the source of awe we feel upon stepping into such a place? Seals can help us out. His answers come from evidence-based knowledge, solid research, and years of on-the-ground experience. Much of what he urges and recommends is linked to something we all need to know more about—soil health. Soil is a body-like entity with the inherent capability of taking care of itself. In most garden settings it can function fully and robustly—with little intervention on the part of us gardeners.

Back to the New Basics by Joe Seals

Before you lament that you’ll have little to do given the self-sufficiency of soil, hear what Seals has to say. He is not urging inaction. He is saying take action differently, and specifically with the needs of soil in mind. I think the takeaway of Seals’s New Basics is this: less is more. Truly. Less physical and chemical disruption is what your soil wants. Less digging and turning, less dumping and pouring of products from bags and bottles. Seals’s upshot? In most garden settings, leaving soil to its own devices is a good idea. And he’s right.

Back to the New Basics is filled with scads of information to help you modify your gardening practices so that they support—rather than bludgeon or perturb—the belowground plant microbiome and their larger soil-dwelling compatriots. He walks us through some counter-intuitive ideas, busting myths while peppering us with immensely useful information and how-tos. It turns out soil life—from lumbering beetles to multitudes of beneficial microbes around roots—are better equipped than us gardeners in many ways. Their actions can deliver the outcomes we gardeners want. But for them to do so requires nourishment—from you, the gardener.

This is where mulching enters the picture. A steady supply feeds the masses of soil critters and creatures that underpin soil health, and thus the looks and well-being of your garden. Out of sight beneath your feet, they toil away processing, transforming, and cycling organic matter. Their activities ensure that a vast array of nutrients and countless other beneficial compounds reach not just your plants, but the garden’s entire ecosystem. So, instead of digging, tilling, and pouring products into your soil, I think you might want to consider a newfound interest in mulching. And like other practices in Back to the New Basics, a focus on soil health translates into other outcomes we gardeners want—like thwarting pests and pathogens, helping pollinators, decreasing watering, and freaking out less about weeds.

Seals opens the door to a garden we should all enter. He helps us see that a garden humming and thrumming with liveliness and beauty arises from practices that dovetail with how the part of nature beneath our feet actually works. In short, if it’s good for the soil, it’s good for the garden.

ISBN-13: 979-8388104977

Publisher: Sasquatch Books, Seattle

Publication date: 2023

Pages: 337

First published in 1870, The Wild Garden challenged the prevailing garden style of the day and advocated a naturalistic style, in which hardy plants, both native and exotic, are arranged in groupings that mimic wild landscapes.

Thanks to Robinson’s passionate advocacy, the naturalistic style triumphed, and Robinson's urgent message continues to resonate today. For this newly designed edition, Rick Darke has written an introductory essay that not only underscores Robinson’s importance in the evolution of garden design and ecology, but also explains his relevance for today’s gardeners, designers, and landscape professionals.

The book contains over 100 stunning photographs taken by Darke, including images of Gravetye and of modern “wild” gardens.

Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast: Washington, Oregon, British Columbia & Alaska, Jim Pojar, A. MacKinnon, and Paul B. Alaback, Lone Pine Pub, 2004, 528 pgs. ISBN-13: 9781551055305

This book was recommended by a number of my plant friends when I first arrived in Oregon. I needed some help to identify plants on my property and this book was just the thing. It comes in hardback, but I prefer the paperback version which is very durable and easy to take with me on hikes and travels.

The pictures in this book are very useful and include both flowers and foliage which helps with identification during the non-blooming periods. The book focuses on herbaceous flowering plants, but there are sections for trees, shrubs, ferns, and aquatics plants. Now that I'm rehabilitating a pond on my property, the aquatics section has been very handy. The book includes a notes section with information about historical uses or interesting lore about the species.

Review by Ann Geyer

"The extraordinary photos are beautiful and help to identify the nearly 400 common wildflowers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, W Montana, Wyoming and Alberta."

This guidebook has helped me identify plants from the Oregon Coast to Montana. There is a precise description of each flower's habit, range, and key characteristics. The 10 pages of "Visual Guide to Families and Genera" has been especially helpful for identification. It's a great addition to your personal reference library.

Wayside Wildflowers of the PNW

Dee Strickler, Flower Press, 1993, 272 pages.

Coastal Gardening in the Pacific Northwest, Carla Albright, Taylor Trade Publishing, 2007, 250 pgs. ISBN-13: 978-1589793170

Carla Albright is an Oregon State Master Gardener, teaches OSU Master Gardener classes and writes a gardening column for the Tillamook Headlight Herald while also working as a professional gardener on the Oregon coast.

Her book is a combination of how-to guide, workbook and concise plant encyclopedia. She makes specific plant recommendations that will survive and thrive in our sometimes harsh conditions. The workbook portion are useful for focusing attention on the elements, (salt spray, rainfall, sun, wind) that make up a coastal garden environment. Chapter 7, “Plants To Avoid In Coastal Gardens” is a special favorite of mine.

The book also includes a brief travel guide for coastal public gardens and a compact bibliography pointing us to further research possibilities.