Elin, Ironically, I was faced with the opposite situation at our local
library. The very few basic gardening books on the shelf were written by
American authors. Although well-written and probably helpful to the majority
of American gardeners who live in warm-summer climates, most of the advice and,
especially, the suggested plant species and planting times could not be applied
to our mountain climate and acidic soil. On trips to Denver, Colorado, I found
books by English gardeners writing about gardening in the U.K. Much to my
surprise, although their winters are nothing like mine up here, their summers
ARE, and they, too, have an ongoing problem with acid soil (at least in the
books I read). Guided by the advice and plant recommendations, I drew away
from the American gardening books. I started with annuals because it was all I
knew at the time. I didn't know there were warm-weather annuals and
cool-weather annuals. My mother just grew a few petunias and some kind of
yellow daisy at my original home in Chicago, Illinois. Once I began selecting
cool-weather annuals, things changed dramatically at the condominium gardens in
Breckenridge where I made my first attempt at mountain gardening. Now I have
a very large collection of gardening-related books with many of them written by
English gardeners. And, over the years, I worked within our local garden club
to acquire many similar books for our three Summit County branch libraries. If
the Denver library had not kept those few English gardening books on its
shelves (which don't in any way apply to the climate in Denver), I might have
become so discouraged that I would have given up trying to garden at 10,000
feet. Jane HendrixMountain View Experimental GardensPeak 7 Area -
Breckenridge, Colorado U.S.A.Elevation: 10,000 feetUSDA Zone 4Website:
http://www.picturetrail.com/hendrix
---------- Original Message ----------
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Alpine-l] Names
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:49:08 EST
<!--CTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//E--><p><span
id="role_document" style="font-family: Arial; color: #000000; font-size:
x-small;"><div><span style="font-size: small;">Some years ago I established a
gardening collection in our local library in honor of my mother who used to be
the librarian. At the time the only books there were not only out of date
but all were English in origin. I tried to cover a wide range of subjects
all by American authors: pruning, pests, propagation, vegetable
gardening, books on a variety of flowers. But I bought the Stearns book
thinking it would be a good reference. I have wondered if anyone besides
me has ever used it. Jane's remarks have encouraged
me.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:
small;"> </span> </div><div><span style="font-size: small;">How
wonderful it would be to have your memory, Jane.</span></div><div><span
style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div><span style="font-size:
small;">Elin Johnson</span></div></span></p></html>
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