Gardening Books

(Robin's Meadow, pastel)

At work, months ago, I was asked to produce a list of my favorite gardening books (which I just came across). My boss said that he didn't read very much (what?!!!), and asked me to speak about gardening books to augment his brief presentation at a local bookstore. Here's my list, in no particular order (I discussed my 5 favorites, but here's the long list): 

Insituto Geografico de Agostini Novara, Monumenti d'Italia Ville e Giardini 

Mosser, The Architecture of Western Gardens 

Hazelhurst, Gardens of Illusion 

Dan Hinkley, Winter Ornamentals 

Kruckeberg, Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest 

Grant, Trees and Shrubs for Pacific NW Gardens 

Bryant, Propagation Handbook 

Solomon, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades 

Colebrook, Winter Gardening 

Jane Brown, Gardens of a Golden Afternoon 

Roger Grounds, Ornamental Grasses 

LH Bailey, How Plants Get Their Names 

Rosemary Verey, The Englishwoman's Garden 

The American Horticultural Society, Encyclopedia of Garden Plants 

Sudworth, Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope 

Pojar + Mackinnon, Plants of the Pacific NW Coast 

Emily Brown, Landscaping with Perennials 

Bruce, Winterthur in Bloom 

Penelope Hobhouse, Color in Your Garden 

Stephen Lacey, Scent in Your Garden 

Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style 

Oehme + Van Sweden, Bold Romantic Gardens 

Rosemary Verey, The Art of Planting 

Reader's Digest, Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants + Flowers 

Gertrude Jekyll, color Schemes for the Flower Garden 

Karson, Fletcher Steele Landscape Architect 

GC Taylor, The Modern Garden 

William Robinson, The Wild Garden 

Patrick Blanc, The Vertical Garden 

Louisa Jones, The Art of French Gardening 

L Jones, Gardens of Provence 

Stephen Mansfield, Japanese Stone Gardens

To prepare for my exhibit opening i doodled mendhi on my feet and made a dress from fabric that my husband brought back from Shanghai many years ago.  The fabric is a yummy chocolate brown (not really how it shows up in the photo). 

'Anticipation' is now on display at the Intiman Theater at the Seattle Center in conjunction with the Global Health Exhibit in the next 50 plaza. The piece illustrates a segment of PATH's Sure Start program in India.  The border represents the 200 rupees (each disk is the size of a 2 rupee coin) needed to transport a woman in labor to a safe health care facility instead of giving birth at home where mortality rates are very high.  200 rupees is about $10. and that's what it takes to save the life of a new born and the mother.  The father in the piece is putting a coin into a traditional terracotta bank, held by his daughter, as savings towards the cost of transportation.  The piece has an excerpt from a poem by Swami Vivekananda, that is embroidered, which reads:

Before the sun, the moon, the earth,
Before the stars or comets free,
Before e'en time has had its birth,
I was, I am, and I will be.

The fiberwork is made out of cotton, silk, linen and mylar.  The rupee border is also a take on shisha embroidery in India that uses tiny mirrors to repel the evil eye.  
This was such a fun piece to work on and I'm happy to have it eventually go to PATH's Seattle offices.