Pacific Horticulture’s 2024 Holiday Gift Guide
Contributor
- Topics: Nature is Good For You
Fall 2024
8 Great Book Suggestions from Pacific Horticulture
1. Climate Action for Busy People, Cate Mingoya-LaFortune
Island Press
Climate Action for Busy People is a hopeful and realistic roadmap for individuals and groups who want to boost climate preparedness and move the needle towards environmental justice. Drawing from her professional and personal success in climate adaptation and community organizing, Cate Mingoya-LaFortune begins with a brief history of why our communities look the way they do (spoiler, it’s not an accident!) and how that affects how vulnerable we are to climate risks. Each chapter will help readers scale up their actions, from identifying climate solutions that an individual or small group can pull off in a handful of weekends, like tree plantings or depaving parties, to advocating for change at the municipal level through coalition-building and data collection. It’s not too late for people of all ages and skill levels to create climate safe neighborhoods.
A 2024 Design Futurist Prize Title
2. Finding a Way: A Naturalist’s Tour of the Web of Life, Charles Hood
Timber Press
When it comes to the logistical ease of each destination, Hood purposefully designed this book around attainable outdoor experiences. This aspect of accessibility is a relief to all of us who devote too many of our waking hours to working in urban areas, yet long to get away and “into nature” in the slivers of off time when we’re not running errands. There are no tricky routes, overnight backpacks, reservations, or bureaucratic permit systems required. Only one hike involves navigating a dirt road, and most are welcome to on-leash dogs. The majority of the walks are fewer than three miles long.
Read our Book Review by Katherine Renz here.
Penguin Random House
Whether you rely on a designer or embark on the journey yourself, a garden is not going to last if you don’t bond with the space during the creation process. In their new book, Garden Wonderland: Create Life-Changing Outdoor Spaces for Beauty, Harvest, Meaning, and Joy, authors Leslie Bennett and Julie Chai invite gardeners to find purpose in their plantings.
Meaningfulness is the guiding principle throughout Garden Wonderland. The book leads with a list of critical tenets that guide you toward creating a meaningful garden: make plants part of your daily life, surround yourself with beauty, make space for connection, and fortify your sense of belonging. Considering and incorporating each of these tenets will help you to create a successful and enduring garden.
Read our Book Review by Jim Salyards here.
4. Regenerating Essential Goods and Services in Urban Landscapes, Douglas Kent
Routledge
Doug Kent has responded to a gap in the environmental and human health discussion in his new book, Regenerating Essential Goods and Services in Urban Landscapes. Rather than keeping environmental concerns separate from self care and garden design, Kent is mashing them all together and illustrating how interconnected these things are. He gives us 10 chapters, each a nutrient-dense primer on a discrete subject. The chapters cover crafting and textiles, energy, food, landscape materials, public health, self-care, thermal comfort, timber, greywater, and rainwater capture and use. He takes the time to unpack the synergies between how we care for landscapes and what we can derive from them, then prompts further exploration.
Read our Book Review by Jennifer de Graaf here.
Filbert Press
Shrouded in Light is not so much of a book as a deep artistic and horticultural meditation, one that spoils the eyes with breathtaking photos and excites the mind with vibrant descriptions, all the while offering practical ways to incorporate shrubland-esque elements into landscape design.
In addition to artistic inspiration, there is also an abundance of knowledge and techniques for those who partner with shrubs to design plant communities in the landscape. The authors don’t hold back, providing plant commentaries on the design of several landscape examples
Read our Book Review by Mary Bagazinski here.
A 2024 Design Futurist Prize Title
6. The California Sky Watcher, William A. Selby
Heyday Books
William A. Selby, in his new book The California Sky Watcher, seeks to change that. An earth science researcher and former professor, Selby takes the reader on a tour de force exploration of the state’s weather across the course of a year, from season to season. Throughout the journey, the book examines and explains the weather that affects the different locales within the state, and its impact on the flora and fauna that can be found there.
Read our Book Review by Richard Bartlett here.
7. The Tree Collectors, Amy Stewart
Penguin Random House
When Amy Stewart discovered a community of tree collectors, she expected to meet horticultural fanatics driven to plant every species of oak or maple. But she also discovered that the urge to collect trees springs from something deeper and more profound: a longing for community, a vision for the future, or a path to healing and reconciliation.
Read our Book Review by Jennifer de Graaf here.
8. Planting in a Post-Wild World, Thomas Rainer & Claudia West
Hachette Books/Timber Press
Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious.
A 2024 Design Futurist Prize Title
Share:
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Responses