Three Top Woodland garden books

Plus a few more too important to leave off the list

Winter is a time to sit back with your favourite gardening book and begin planning for the gardening season ahead. That sense of anticipation is a feeling that is hard to deny and leads me to turn another page of my favourite gardening book looking for new ideas and possible garden vignettes I can implement this spring and summer.

YouTube gardening channels and other blogs just can’t replace the joy of a good, well-worn and tattered garden book, maybe a coffee and a comfortable chair.

This lovely little book provides everything you ever wanted to know about Dogwoods with complete descriptions of just about every dogwood and cultivars available.

I am currently leafing through Dogwoods, (link to book from Alibris with incredible prices on used books) an incredibly informative and entertaining book I picked up from Alibris books (an umbrella group of independent book sellers based in the United States and the U.K. that offers used books at extremely reduced prices.) If the book has taught me anything, it’s that I need more Dogwoods in my life.

Many of the books below are available through a number of book retailers, but I urge you to check out Alibris for outstanding deals on perfectly good used books at ridiculously reduced prices.

Here are three gardening books (plus links to several more) that can turn winter evenings into productive gardening days.

So let’s get started.

The Wild Garden, Expanded Edition is an excellent resource for any gardener looking to go a little wild in their garden.

The Wild Garden: A Woodland bible

The Wild Garden (amazon link) might well be considered the bible of Woodland gardening.

(Link to Wild Garden from Alibris Books, Movies and Music)

With its roots going back to its first publishing in 1870, the new edition includes an introductory essay by award-winning photographer and landscape consultant Rick Darke (The Woodland Garden) who underscores the importance of not only the author’s original ground-breaking, and hugely influential approach to gardening at that time, but its importance to today’s environmental-conscious gardeners and more naturalistic, ecological landscape designs.

It’s a message more gardeners need to embrace as our planet comes under new, and constant threats to its very survival.

A kindle version is also available for this book.

The Living Landscape explores how to take modern family needs and apply them to a natural landscape that feeds the soul of Woodland gardeners and those looking to bring nature back to their gardens.

From the Chicago Tribune: “If there was but one book on our garden library shelf, William Robinson’s The Wild Garden would be the single tome, at once revolutionary and oozing charm. . . . With photographer and writer Rick Darke’s added chapters and insight, we understand more than ever the wisdom and urgency of Robinson’s garden gospel.”

The 356-page book includes more than 100 outstanding photographs taken by Darke that include images of modern “wild” gardens to give readers an understanding of how today’s gardeners and landscapers are interpreting the naturalistic garden. The Wild Garden includes the complete original text and illustrations from the fifth edition of 1895.

The hardcover book, published by Timber Press, is also available in a more economical Kindle edition.

The Living Landscape: A guide to backyard design

The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden is another offering by Rick Darke and Timber Press.

This is a book that I keep going back to for new ideas and approaches to creating a garden that is both inspiring and family friendly as well as sympathetic to the natural environment.

It’s for gardeners who want it all but need a little help bringing their wildest dreams to fruition. In this almost 400-page guide to backyard design, Darke teams up with author Douglas W. Tallamy (Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard) to create a blueprint for today’s ecological gardener looking to achieve a home landscape that satisfies their soul, their kids’ need to have a play area, some privacy and maybe even a little veggie on the side.

The Living Landscape is also available at Alibris Books, including used versions at excellent prices.

A tall order for sure, but one that is becoming increasingly in demand in backyards big and small all over the world.

The Living Landscape will guide homeowners in the creation of an outdoor space that provides both human needs while still feeding their desires to create a beautiful, wildlife-friendly space that connects them to their favourite natural areas. Along the way the authors provide ideas, richly illustrated with photographs, on incorporating outdoor rooms and entertaining areas.

The authors use favourite wild areas to guide home gardeners in methods they can use to apply these observations of natural areas to their own gardens to create and maintain a diverse, layered landscape that is so important in today’s Woodland gardens.

For my take on using natural areas as inspiration for your own backyard, check out my post here.

Available in both hardback and Kindle version.

The Natural Garden is Ken Druse's earlier book that helped to change how people garden.

The New Shade Garden: Druse sheds light on the beauty of shade

The New Shade Garden: Creating a Lush Oasis in the Age of Climate Change is another important, comprehensive garden book from award-winning garden author Ken Druse ( The Natural Habitat Garden, Natural Garden, The Natural Shade Garden).

For new gardeners looking to create their own ecologically-sensitive oasis, or an experienced gardener looking for help dealing with their ever increasing shade garden and wanting to become more environmentally aware, this book or any other books by author Ken Druse listed above will set you on the right path.

If you are interested in more on the New Shade Garden, check out my complete review here.

Be sure to check out Alibris Books, Music and Movies for used versions of these books.

The 256-page, richly illustrated, informative tome on shade gardening and its importance in a changing world, could not be more appropriate for Woodland gardeners and Woodlanders in training looking for guiding principles.

Druse explains the importance of creating shade gardens in the context of climate change and how to work with nature, including making the most of the constraints that may arise.

The New Shade Garden provides gardeners with a manual to begin down the Woodland path or methods to turn a less environmental, water-starved traditional backyard, into one that works with nature, climate change and ever-evolving garden aesthetics.

Published by Harry N. Abrams and available as both a hardcover and Kindle edition.

Nancy Lawson with her book The Humane Gardener.

The Humane Gardener and Wildscape books: Ideal for gardeners who care

Wildscapes is author Nancy Lawson’s latest book exploring the natural world that exists in our gardens.

If gardening with nature, woodland creatures, birds and the natural environment are among the reasons you garden, you simply have to put The Humane Gardener and Wildscape on your list of must-haves.

And, if you have friends who think the same, these make the perfect gift to inspire them to even greater things in their gardens.

I have written extensively about author Nancy Lawson’s critically acclaimed books.

Lawson doesn’t pull any punches about the importance of respecting the creepy crawlies, animals and other visitors we share our gardens with on a daily basis. Her approach to wildlife gardening is, however, both informative and easy to incorporate in our daily lives.

If you are interested in exploring Nancy’s books further, please check out my full reviews listed below.

Nancy Lawson, The Humane Gardener. (link to my full review.)

The Humane Gardener (Amazon link)

Wildscape book review with links to reviews of each chapter of the book.

Wildscape (Amazon link)

Author Profile: Vic MacBournie is a former journalist and author/owner of Ferns & Feathers. He writes about his woodland wildlife garden that he has created over the past 25 years and shares his photography with readers.