Favorite Books--PBS TOW
Mary Sue Ittner (Tue, 10 Dec 2002 19:50:25 PST)

Aren't there other book collectors in this group?

I second Ernie's choice of Jack Elliott's book. I love that book and find
myself rereading it every year when the seed lists arrive. I too miss
Jack's participation. He was so generous with his knowledge and experiences
of success and failure and there was always the delight and love of flowers
shinning through.

I have many books including a lot of the ones I summarized that had been
mentioned on the PBS list in the past. But there are others not mentioned
that I would like to add. I especially like the books that are written by
people who actually grow the plants and are therefore sharing their
experiences.

Bulbs for New Zealand Gardeners & Collectors by Jack Hobbs and Terry Hatch
is one such book. Terry told me he had grown all the plants he talked
about. Although this book is out of print with the marvel of the Internet
we have found copies in New Zealand to share with friends. This is a good
book for California growers of bulbs since it concentrates on some of the
bulbs that are more easily grown in areas that don't get so cold. It gives
cultural information, describes genus and species, sometimes describing the
species, sometimes telling about habitat and their luck with growing.

Another book written in 1936 but republished in 1990 is Adventures with
Hardy Bulbs by Louise Beebe Wilder. This one doesn't have pictures, but it
is really fun to read. Wilder lived in New York City so her experiences
would be really different than Hobbs and Hatch.

My husband located a copy of Sima Eliovson's Bulbs for the Gardener in the
Southern Hemisphere written in 1967. She is South African, but the bulbs
she talks about are world wide. She doesn't describe as many species of
each genus, but gives interesting cultural information. For example about
Veltheimia which we discussed yesterday she says, "Plant the large bulbs at
the end of summer or early in autumn in light soil containing plenty of
leaf-mould. The neck of the bulb should be at soil level or slightly above
it. Choose a shady situation under trees as the Forest Lily likes shade and
does not resent competition from tree roots." and so on

I am very fond of Cyclamen and have appreciated Cyclamen by Christopher
Grey-Wilson.

In addition to the Barbara Jeppe book my husband one Christmas presented me
with a copy of Niel du Plessis & Graham Duncan's Bulbous Plants of Southern
Africa. Like Arnold's well worn copy of Phillips and Rix for years I would
look through both of those books and dream about growing some of the plants
in them. This one covers the Amaryllidaceae and other families left out of
the other. Often one species will be listed in one of the books and not the
other even in the genus is in both books.

If you want to grow Lachenalia then you need Graham Duncan's The Lachenalia
Handbook.

We've already mentioned some of Brian Mathew's other books, but I have
found Growing Bulbs: The Complete Practical Guide to be another good
general book. It includes a lot of information about South American bulbs
not readily found but often doesn't have information about a particular
species I want to know about. But still I often find the answer I am
looking for and he shares his experience if he has it.

Finally back in those days before I became a bulb fanatic and just had a
few general bulb books, I purchased an Ortho book called All About Bulbs.
This revised edition was published in 1986 for $6.95. What made this book a
gold mine for a beginner from California was that the editors had as
consultants August De Hertogh, Stan Farwig, Vic Girard, and Wayne Roderick.
The latter three had large collections of bulbs and were growing them in
northern California. Many they had grown from seed and so this book told
about bulbs and species never found before or since in such a book. It has
been revised once again and now is back to tulips, hyacinths, narcissus and
all the bulbs most people think of when they think of bulbs. These were
featured too, but there were many others I had never heard of before. And
what I loved was they had a map of the United States. If the map was
colored in dark blue that meant the bulb could be naturalized with normal
garden care in that area. If light blue, the bulb could be grown outdoors
with some precautions. If uncolored the bulb would be difficult to grow as
a perennial, but still maybe possible in bulb frames, greenhouses, or maybe
as an annual. I don't know how accurate the maps were, but the maps for
a very large number of genera for my part of California were colored dark
blue or light blue so there was a whole range of possibilities open to me.

Mary Sue
PBS List Administrator