<p>A quick review of my bookshelf will stand as a record of obsessions that have gripped me in the course of my gardening life. In the beginning, my first garden in the UK was on impervious Hampshire clay. This did not deter me from a love affair with heaths and heathers, and in 1975 I purchased ‘Heathers in Colour’ by Brian and Valerie Proudly (published by Blandford Press). After having learned the hard way that only Erica carnea would flourish on my lime-infused clay soil, this passion soon fizzled out. The following year, enthused by pictures of dwarf conifers in gardening magazines, I purchased ‘Garden Conifers in Colour’ by the same authors. This was a more successful obsession, and I added ‘Ornamental Conifers’ by Charles R. Harrison (published by David & Charles) to my bookshelf. At about this time I discovered the wonderful ‘Hillier’s Manual of Trees and Shrubs’ produced by the Hampshire nursery of Hillier and Sons. So indispensable did this Manual prove, with its huge number of species and cultivars, useful lists of plants for various purposes, and metric/imperial measurement conversion tables that I still possess both the fourth and sixth editions.</p>
<p>Around 1978, I discovered fuchsias. Again I turned to Brian and Valerie Proudly, whose ‘Fuchsias in Colour’ answered my search for knowledge. I now began to concentrate on indoor plants in earnest. Previously, I had only possessed two slim volumes by John Warren entitled ‘House Plants’ and ‘Greenhouse Plants’ in the Ilford Color Book of Flower Identification series. Now I purchased ‘The Complete Indoor Gardener’, a collaborative tome published by Pan Books, and someone gave me ‘The Love of Indoor Plants’ by Lovell Benjamin, a coffee-table book (published by Octopus Books Limited) with huge colour plates. During a brief fling with ferns in 1979 I bought ‘Fern Growers Manual’ by Barbara Joe Hoshizaki (published by Alfred J. Knopf) and ‘Terrariums & Miniature Gardens’ by Dawn Bunce (published by Ure Smith of Sydney, Australia).</p>
<p>I was still learning about outdoor plants too, and in the late 1970’s I added to my bookshelf ‘The Dictionary of Garden Plants in colour’ and ‘The Dictionary of Shrubs in colour’ (both published by the Royal Horticultural Society), and Reader’s Digest’s weighty ‘Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants and Flowers’. I also bought ‘Perennial Garden Plants’ and ‘Plants for Ground-cover’ by Graham Stuart Thomas (published by J.M. Dent and Sons) and developed a fondness for hardy perennials.</p>
<p>Aware that I should be arranging my plants in some kind of aesthetically pleasing order, I purchased ‘Garden Design’ by Kenneth Midgley (published by Pelham Books in conjunction with the RHS), and forever after ignored all its good practical advice on planning and site preparation. More to my taste was ‘Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden’ by Gertrude Jekyll (published by Country Life), a sixth edition of which I unearthed in a used-book store. I became ever more enthusiastic about the artistic side of gardening, and so I appreciated getting a copy of ‘The Startling Jungle: Colour and Scent in the Romantic Garden’ by Stephen Lacey (Viking) a few years later.</p>
<p>The 1980’s brought an abrupt change to my gardening parameters, as I exchanged the gentle climate of southern England for the (to me) shockingly hot summers and punishingly cold winters of Ontario, Canada. A sudden interest in plants adapted to extremes caused me to add Will Ingwersen’s ‘Alpine Garden Plants’ (Blandford Press) to my library. Then, inexplicably, I became so interested in New Zealand alpine plants that I purchased ‘Hebes and Parahebes’ by Douglas Chalk (Timber Press). Several ‘whipcord’ hebes and miniature hebes with small, glaucous leaves perished horribly before I came to my senses.</p>
<p>One thing had not changed: I was still gardening on clay. Roses now began to obsess me. I obtained four booklets in the Jarrold Book of Roses series, with text by Peter Beales and photos by Keith Money, covering ‘Georgian & Regency Roses’, ‘Early Victorian Roses’, ‘Late Victorian Roses’, and ‘Edwardian Roses’. Graham Stuart Thomas’s three lovely rose books, ‘Shrub Roses of Today’, ‘The Old Shrub Roses’, and ‘Climbing Roses, Old and New’ (J.M. Dent) captivated me. Sadly, few of the roses that I coveted were hardy in my climate Zone, even if I buried them for winter.</p>
<p>In my enthusiasm for hardy woody plants, I bought Agriculture Canada’s ‘Trees and Shrubs of the Dominion Arboretum’, and embarked upon the ambitious project of obtaining all four volumes, plus fat supplement, of W. J. Bean’s ‘Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles’, eighth edition (published by John Murray). Michael A. Dirr’s ‘Manual of Woody Landscape Plants’ (Stipes Publishing) also entered my library.</p>
<p>The 1990’s brought another move, this time to southeast Pennsylvania, and for the first time I was confronted with the twin challenges of dry soil and voracious herbivores. I put woody plants aside to concentrate on perennials. Now I purchased ‘Perennials and their garden habitats’ by Richard Hansen and Friedrich Stahl (Timber Press) and began to select plants for my growing conditions instead of buying plants that had no hope of success. Also, ‘Herbaceous Perennial Plants’ by Allen Armitage (Varsity Press) provided information about North American cultivars, while the pictures of wild plants in Random House’s two-volume set of ‘Perennials’ by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix helped me to understand where the plants were coming from.</p>
<p>Although I did not have a rock-garden any more, I was still keen on high-altitude plants, and I needed low-growing perennials capable of surviving in full sun on a windy hilltop. I supplemented my reference library with Will Ingwersen’s ‘Manual of Alpine Plants’ (Cassel), and ‘Rock Garden Plants’ by Baldassare Mineo (Timber Press). I bought ‘Gentians’ by Fritz Kohlein (Timber Press), but did not succeed in growing any. Gardening in USDA Zone 6, I became convinced that I could grow Mediterranean plants on the south side of my house, and bought UK National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens pamphlets on ‘Oreganum: the herb marjoram and its relatives’ by Susie White, and ‘Phlomis: the Neglected Genus’ by Jim Mann Taylor.</p>
<p>Ten years on, I moved back to Ontario, and I got my first greenhouse. I was suddenly gripped by an enthusiasm for growing small bulbs in pots. At that time I only owned ‘The Bulb Book’ by Martyn Rix & Roger Phillips (Pan Books), and an ancient Penguin Handbook ‘Hardy Bulbs 1’, and so I added to my library ‘Bulbs in Containers’ by Rod Leeds, and ‘Cyclamen’ by Christopher Grey-Wilson (both from Timber Press).</p>
<p>Then I was bitten by the hardy cactus bug. Several of my early cactus acquisitions languished and declined in the garden, despite being planted in gravel and given full sun. Planting the cacti in pots, so they could be overwintered in the greenhouse, was my next craze. I bought ‘Hardy Succulents’ by Gwen Moore Kelaidis (Storey Publishing) and ‘Cacti & Succulents for Cold Climates’ by Leo J. Chance (Timber Press), both of which provided excellent guidance.</p>
<p>I’m currently waiting for the next obsession to strike.</p>
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