| Thanks Tony and Ginger for starting this thread off. I hope that many will join us in proposing books and later in discussing them. Please recruit members from other GW Forums that might be interested. Also this does not have to be a "love-fest" you can propose books that you don’t like and you may of course discuss equally what you don’t like about any book as well as what you do like. This Book Club is intended to foster active dialogue. I will be adding to this also as we go along. After two weeks I will post a list of everything proposed and we can vote on which books to start with. Please include the authors name with any book proposed and a short commentary on the book. A Woman’s Hardy Garden, by Helena Rutherford Ely
This early 20th century American gardening book is posted online, both text and photography. John_D gave the web address on another thread. This is one historical gardening book that everyone would have access to. Strangers in the Garden: The Secret Lives of our Favorite Flowers, by Andrew Smith
This is a new book (2004) that is mainly a social gardening history of ten familiar and popular garden plants including the Dahlia, Clematis, Crocus, Peony and Lilac. My Garden Book, by Jamaica Kincaid
Novelist, Jamaica Kincaid is both an avid reader and gardener. Both activities intertwine in her life. When as a beginner gardener she also read a history of the conquest of Mexico the way she viewed the garden changed and the garden changed her perception of the conquest. For her the garden is "an exercise in memory, a way of remembering my own immediate past, a way of getting to a past that is my own---and the past as it is indirectly related to me." [p.8]
I believe that Garden Restoration is also an exercise in memory and whether we write about it, actively restore gardens, or plant anything at all that takes our fancy, we are engaged in this exercise. In Search of Lost Roses, by Christopher Thomas
The story of how old garden roses that were no longer available commercially were brought back to contemporary gardens. Gertrude Jekyll: A Vision of Garden and Wood, by Judith B. Tankard, Published in conjunction with a major exhibition of Gertrude Jekyll's photographs.
This publication gives us a chance to see Jekyll's gardening through her own eyes. Jekyll was an accomplished writer, gardener and photographer. She took her photographs to illustrate her garden articles and document her own garden. Gertrude Jekyll's Lost Garden, by Rosamund Wallinger
This is the true story of how an ordinary private individual went about restoring an Edwardian garden. Demonstrates how patience, time and a willingness to learn are more valuable commodities than money in Garden Restoration The Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll, by Richard Bisgrove
This is a really good overview of Jekyll’s design sensibilities. Includes reproductions of her actual design drawing and planting plans accompanied by colour photographs of contemporary replantings of the gardens. There is also an overview of the plants important to Jekyll, how she used them, and how they relate to what is presently available. Dumbarton Oaks: Garden into Art, by Susan Tamulevich
Documentation of five decades of the development and evolution of a major American garden. Designed by renowned landscape architect Beatrix Farrand, Dumbarton Oaks is a living work of art. As well as stunning photographs this book includes historical photographs, garden plans, telegrams and correspondence. A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America In The Nineteenth –Century, by Witold Rybczynsky
Known mainly for his design of Central Park and the Vanderbilt estate Biltmore, Frederick Law Olmsted had a varied career. W.R. follows Olmsted’s career from New York to California and his travels through Europe. Includes nineteenth-century photographs and design plans of several Olmsted designed parks. Plenty of documentation and analysis of his relationships with family, patrons, friends, and employees. | 
