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BOOKreviews
Succulent Style: A Gardener’s Guide to Growing and Crafting with Succulents Author: Julie Hillier Publisher: Yellow Pear Press/Mango Publishing List Price: $28.99 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3qMYUuq and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781642507850 Reviewer: Jaime Breeden Succulent Style: A Gardener’s Guide to Growing and Crafting with Succulents details the process of styling, growing, and making crafts with various species of succulent plants. That order of operations may read like putting the cart before the horse, but that’s how the book is laid out. Where a more beginner-friendly guide may start with what a succulent is or how you go about keeping one alive long enough to turn into a wedding cake topper or birdhouse, the first thing this book chooses to dive into is in-depth artistic theory, as though your landscaper had a bachelor’s degree in fine art, but that’s no surprise considering the book’s author. Julie Hillier has been in the business of succulent styling for roughly 20 years now, long enough to understand the ins and outs as well as anyone could. It makes sense to demonstrate design before all else when growing the succulents is the easiest part for someone picking up this book. That being said, if you’d never seen a succulent before, the growing section is likely to have the answers to all your questions, although for someone with my experience level, some terminology required Googling, because the book assumes the reader has some level of experience with gardening generally in addition to an interest in succulents specifically. The first chapter largely demonstrates the sort of large-scale projects done by professional garden designers, such as Jim Bishop’s one-acre garden with mosaic walkways and wide swathes of multi-specie plant beds for meters in all directions or Mike Pyle’s resort-like architectural style of working plants into personalized oases in more metropolitan locations. The author details how best to plot different plants together, color coordinate rocks, and design artificial creek beds with recycled materials. For me, it was a lot to take in, but it immediately captured my attention and sprouted ideas for how best to draw the eye from plant to plant, carving a little slice of horticultural heaven out of even the most arid land. A far cry from the multiseason, often-humid climate of our neck of the woods. Many of Hillier’s tips and tricks are also applicable to smaller, indoor ventures, going so far as to devise improvisational planters from common household objects. Miniature glass terrariums, hollowed out books, driftwood—she even shows the steps to turn spare rope into a hanging cradle and a self-contained ball of soil to hang within. But what is there to do with the plant in that ball of soil? Well, the book’s final act details a surprising number of crafts you can make with your new succulents. Corsages, birdhouse decorations, rings, dog collars, and Hillier’s own succulent wreaths, with step-bystep pictures detailing the whole process and methods to prolong the life of your chosen creation. It is fascinating to read how many things you can make with some plants, wire, and tape. I could see a few people I know doing this sort of thing, had they the green thumb to grow these plants in the first place. But this book does seem like a good place to start. Overall, Hillier’s Succulent Style: A Gardener’s Guide to Growing and Crafting with Succulents is a good primer for the succulent-curious and the enthusiast to dig into a new style of gardening. It’s not the most beginner-friendly; depending on your own comfort and experience level, you are likely to need some online research to pair with the book. But Hillier does a good job of stitching together all these artistic concepts and ideas to give anyone with some time and soil enough inspiration to open a whole new world of cropportunities. o
Jaime Breeden is a fourth-year journalism student at the University of Maryland, College Park and an intern this fall session with Washington Gardener.
100 Plants to Feed the Monarch: Create a Healthy Habitat to Sustain North America’s Most Beloved Butterfly Authors: Eric Lee-Mäder, Stephanie Frischie, Emma Pelton, Sarina Jepsen, Stephanie McKnight, and Scott Hoffman Black Publisher: Storey Publishing List Price: $16.95 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3dpGFbn and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781635862737 Reviewer: Brandie Bland The monarch butterfly, North America’s most beloved insect, is a migratory species which is now facing extinction. The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), easily identifiable by its beautiful orange wings, is endangered due to climate change and habitat loss. If you are a monarch butterfly lover looking for more information about how your garden can join the conservation fight, you need to pick up a copy of the Xerces Society’s book, 100 Plants to Feed the Monarch. This well-written and well-researched book provides an in-depth look at the monarch butterfly species and teaches gardeners of all skill levels how they can help the monarchs by growing plants they depend on for survival.
The book is split into two main sections: “North American Royalty” and “The Plants Monarchs Need.” “North American Royalty” breaks down the lifecycle of the monarch as a species and covers how we can protect the species by creating safe habitats. “The Plants Monarchs Need” explores monarch habitats and plant life, and offers in-depth plant profiles of monarch-friendly plantings that are heavy
on substance without becoming dense or overly academic. The first plant profile highlights the only plant monarch caterpillars like to eat: milkweed. Milkweed gets its name from the milky latex fluid found in its leaves and stems. There are 75 milkweed species native to North America and this section of the book lists milkweeds by name (English and Latin), along with things like the type of soil moisture it needs, its bloom time, and how much sun exposure it requires. For readers who may not have a green thumb, don’t fret: This book is easy to follow and tells you all you need to know about growing the plants monarchs need. After milkweeds, the book takes readers along for a journey to learn about non-milkweed host plants, native wildflowers, and trees and shrubs that are helpful to monarchs. There is also a brief section that explains how the plants in this book help other pollinators, which includes a guide to other sources to learn more about the monarch and the plants it loves. 100 Plants to Feed the Monarch is a breezy, sturdy quick reference that you can toss into your favorite gardening tote. It gets high marks for its easy-to-understand plant profiles and plenty of helpful reference photos and colorful graphics. If you like to read books with a more theoretical tilt, this may not be the book for you, but if you enjoy a straight to the point, hands-on reference, then look no further. This is a beginner-friendly book for both gardeners and monarch conservationists alike—a great addition to any bookshelf. Whether you are worried about the monarch’s plight or an avid gardener making a planting plan for your backyard garden to join the conservation fight, 100 Plants to Feed the Monarch is a great resource that you’ll find yourself reaching for over and over. o
Brandie Bland is a senior multi-platform journalism major in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an intern this fall with Washington Gardener.
Crinum: Unearthing the History and Cultivation of the World’s Biggest Bulb Author: Augustus Jenkins Farmer III Publisher: JenksFarmer.com List Price: $25.00 Order Link: https://amzn.to/3Sh1Rz1 Reviewer: Jim Dronenburg This book is not a serious review of the genus Crinum, suitable for in-depth study by a taxonomist. It is, however, an introduction to Crinums and their culture. It serves as a “Hey, look at this” wake-up call to those who have not heard of them before, or, having heard, have dismissed them as plants for the Deep South only. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Crinums come in tropical and temperate varieties, and the distinctions are being blurred constantly by hybridization. One illustration, in Chapter 6, “Crinums for the Cold,” shows Crinums presently being grown up the Eastern Seaboard, New England, and even in Canada—granted, one dot just north of the St. Lawrence—but still, much colder than the DC Metro area. It all depends on the original species and its descendants in the hybrid population. (If you want to remove all doubt, start with Crinum bulbispermum (Z6), C. xpowelli, and C. xpowelli album, and work from there.) Your humble reviewer did not need this book’s message, having grown Crinums (and Amarcrinums, which are crosses between Crinum species and Amaryllis belladonna) for nearly 20 years, up near Harpers Ferry. But I’m recommending it as an introduction to these wonderful plants. There are drawbacks. Crinums are honking huge bulbs, and as they clump up, take a lot of space. However, this is outweighed by their virtues. Established bulbs/clumps (some will clump up rapidly, some not) do take up a fair chunk of room. But the foliage is tropical, lasts all season until frost, and best of all, possesses an alkaloid (like all Amaryllis relatives) that makes them distasteful to most varmints (deer!). A mature clump will send up flowers, depending on the varieties you choose, from April (in SC; usually May up here) to November (barring frosts). The larger the clump, the more bulbs in it, the more flower stalks. Some Crinums leaf out as little as 2 feet tall; others grow, and bloom, up to four, and one or two may have flower stalks up to 5 feet tall. Established clumps are also quite drought-tolerant. They make an architectural statement, and flower in the pink/red/white range at present. They are best in sun; having said that, your reviewer grows them both there and in afternoon shade, and they do just fine. There are also tropical Crinums, which are not for the faint of heart, because they can get huge. But that isn’t really the message here. The back of the book gives a list of Crinum species and cultivars. It can’t
Book Reviews continue on page 20
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be all-inclusive, of course; hybridizers all over the country are working on Crinums and putting out new cultivars. But it’s a good start, tried-and-true plants, more/better probably than a beginner will need. I don’t know if your personal library needs this book if you have a tiny property. But if you have any sort of a yard, you should consider it. At the very least, march down to your local library and request it. They do listen. And then, prepare to be seduced by this plant, as I was 20 years ago. o
Jim Dronenburg is a retired accountant and now gardens full-time in Knoxville, MD.
Edible Plants: A Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of North America Author: Jimmy W. Fike Publisher: Indiana University Press/Red Lightning Books List Price: $25.00’ Order Links: https://amzn.to/3UilGrs and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781684351718 Reviewer: Erica H. Smith First of all, Edible Plants: A Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of North America is a gorgeous book: page after page of photographs of plants posed against a black background, silver-white with highlights in full color, worthy of pride of place on the coffee table. These are not just pretty illustrations, however. Many of the species represented are ones we’d consider weeds. Okay, edible weeds. This book can be called a foraging guide, though it’s a bit heavy to carry into the field. The leaves or flowers or roots that author and artist Jimmy W. Fike has rendered in color are each plant’s edible parts, and each description includes traditional culinary or medicinal uses. These plants are either native to North America or widely naturalized; there’s no bullet point to say which, but you can usually tell from context in the writeup. Each entry gets a paragraph: a short biography that’s factual, not poetic, but between the bio and the photo, you feel you’ve grasped some of the plant’s deep essence. If you want to become a forager, you probably need a guide with a lot more detail. Reviewing such a book, I’d likely suggest perusing the introductory material and then looking at sections as they’re relevant to you—a particular plant, a particular season or type of environment—rather than reading from cover to cover. Fike’s survey lists the plants in alphabetical order by common name, not by region or month or any other practical arrangement. (There is a table of contents, but no index.) You could simply open it to a random page and learn, but paging straight through provides a striking sense of the range and breadth of common useful plants. It makes you wonder at and feel protective of this continent’s native botany, but doesn’t stand in judgment over introduced flora. Nor will you feel judged if you’d rather look at the photos than trudge through the woods and fields to find your dinner. This book would make a great gift for someone fascinated by nature, or who admires art and composition, or preferably both. The photos are almost otherworldly, but grounded in the world around us. I recommend taking a long, slow afternoon to gaze at them, and then go for a walk to find what’s growing between the cracks in the sidewalk in your neighborhood. o
Erica H. Smith is a Montgomery County Master Gardener whose volunteer activities include the MG Demonstration Garden, the Grow It Eat It program. She is the author of several novels; you can visit her website at ericahsmith.wordpress.com.
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