Do you have favorite books and/or apps you like to use for planning and maintaining your gardens? If you had a chance to read the “About Laurie” section of this blog site, the you already know I am a school librarian. I LOVE books, but I also embrace technology so I have my favorites of each!
Over the years I have accumulated gardening books and here are a few I would like to share:
Books:
Midwest Home Landscaping (published 2010) by Roger Holmes & Rita Buchanan – Great Pictures and designs for gardens and ponds! I have the 2006 Edition. The Link is to the 2010 addition and I couldn’t find a newer edition.
Taylor’s Guide’s is a Series written in 1987 and is a very comprehensive series of gardening books with great pictures broken down into visual and color keys.
Taylor’s Guide to Vegetables & Herbs
Taylors’s Guide To Perennials (published 2001)
The Ultimate Guide to Backyard Bugs Garden Insects of North America (published 2017) by Whitney Cranshaw & David Shetlar- I love this book just for the excellent photos of bugs and insects!
The Cooks Herb Garden (published 2010) by Jeff Cox and Marie-Pierre Moine – Growing Herbs has been the easiest thing for me to grow and I just love this book for it pictures, short descriptions, planting schemes, step by step advice, and recipes!
Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening (published 2009) edited by Fern Marshal Bradley, Barbara W. Ellis, and Ellen Phillips- Anything that I eat I grow organically and this books provides the information and resources for organic gardening! Nice section on organic composting. This book may be out of print, so I provided a Kindle link.
Projects For Small Gardens: 56 Projects on foldout pages with step-by-step instructions (published 2002) – by Richard Bird and George Carter- I purchased this book when I had a much smaller yard than I do now. Full of fun gardening ideas for small spaces! This book may be out of print!
The Photographic Encyclopedia of Wildflowers (published 1991) by Teresa Farino This book may be out of print so I included the cover!
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Apps:
Farmers Almanac Garden Planner: This planner needs to be used on a computer or an iPad. It is subscription based. Different levels of subscriptions. I like this garden planner because I can plan multiple gardens, has crop rotations, show what plants grow well together and has a gardening journal included.
Plantnet is a free App for iPhones and androids and is great at identifying unknown plants and flowers.
Garden Answers is another phone App that helps to identify: plants, pests and diseases. Also, you can ask questions and the App holds your answers.
The Cornell Lab Merlin Bird ID App- Very cool app to identify birds!
Planets – just couldn’t resist an app that shows are planets!