Sunday, March 8, 2009

About loving gardening books

K
KK
Today, it is miserably cold and wet, so instead of going outside I am really happy to stay indoors with a cuppa and a book full of gardens and gardening. I shoud have grown out of buying books a long time ago, but somehow they keep asking me to be taken home with me. Buying online is what I do most often today, but while in Sweden, I loved driving to a huge "Salvation Army" type of charity store, Myrorna, in Skärholmen, and browsing their large shelves for great finds. Once, I spotted a large, leather bound book on the shelves. It proved to be the German immigrant Daniel Müller's Trädgårdsskötsel (Gardening or Gardener's Advice, three parts bound together) from 1888 in third edition, a wonderful book that first was published between 1848 and 1853, and greatly influenced Swedish gardeners during the second half of the 19th century.

Forcing wild strawberries in a heated bench.
K
How to plant urns with Dracena and Phormium - plants so trendy in the 1990's and 2000's...
K
My edition of Trädgårdsskötsel seems to have been loved by other gardeners before as it is quite worn out, but with its finely engraved pictures and detailed descriptions of how to plan and plant a garden it is one of my favourite garden book finds. It is lovely to read about what was considered "tasteful" in those days, or to look at the elaborated pictures of ways to train fruit trees - some of them clearly meant only to impress the readers and not to be tried in real life (or what do you say about a grape-vine trained like a wine goblet?). What I regret is that I didn't buy almost any of the garden books from the 1960's and 1970's, a period when gardening was mainly about Berberis and hybrid roses. These books were nearly free as nobody wants them now, but the pictures being downright ugly (I know this is a very subjective statement...), I left them to the shelves. Now I think that I should have included them in my collection as witnesses of that time period - and you can always learn something about gardening and garden styles, even if you don't personally like them.

Part of a larger garden in the English style.
K A garden in the German style.

So, for a book loving person like me, the 4th annual Garden Lovers’ Book Sale on April 3rd and 4th at the Elisabeth C. Miller Library is a real treat. Thousands of used gardening, horticulture, botany and landscape design books will be for sale and all proceeds of the sale are used to purchase the best and newest in horticultural books and journals for the library. Book donations will be accepted until March 31, and admittance to the sale is free.

All pictures are from Daniel Müller's Trädgårdsskötsel (1888).

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If only I live nearby. I'd visit the library and the bonsai exhibition, too!

Anonymous said...

Vilken fantastisk bok...den skulle jag nästan göra allt för att erövra...måste söka på nätet. Tack för den visningen och ha en skön dag!

The Intercontinental Gardener said...

Hi Blossom, and nice to have you visit my blog. I'm sure the book sale is worth a visit, but yes, you do live a bit too far...

Slottsträdgårdsmästaren: kolla med Katrin på Bokfloran (www.bokfloran.se är under konstruktion, men man kan maila henne), hon hade ett slitet ex i sortimentet för att tag sedan. Jag älskar dessa gamla böcker, man får en så bra bild på hur saker gjordes "från grunden" innan man hade el, powertools och konstgödsel. Samt vilka växter som fanns, det är riktigt imponerande vilken mångfald det fanns redan då.

Arboarkticum said...

Hej, hittade just hit i jakten på läsvärda trädgårdsbloggar och har nu avundsjukt avnjutit din recension av den underbara trädgårdsvolymen. Fyndar gärna själva gamla växt- och trädgårdsböcker och häpnar ofta över att visst faktiskt håller bättre kunskapskvalitet än idag - och håller man inte med längre så kan man i stället få sig ett gott skratt - som i den engelska volymen "The complete library of the Garden" från sextiotalet, som finns i vår ägo, där ämnet "hur författa trädgårdsetiketter på rätt sätt" avhandlas med stort allvar... MYCKET underhållande! Ska nu plöja dina övriga boktips.

Ruben said...

Vilket sammanträffande, just den här boken har jag varit ute på nätet och letat. Men längre har det inte kommit. Skrev en liten 'runa' om Daniel Müller i ett inlägg - en spännande levnadshistoria! Om du inte läst inlägger hittar du det här:
http://ruben.tradgardsblogg.se/25574/Svensk+tr%E4dg%E5rdshistoria.html

Många hälsningar
/Ruben

The Intercontinental Gardener said...

Hej Arboarcticum, och kul att du besöker min blog. Jag tog en titt på dina och hittade många fina böcker; trevligt! Jag ska återkomma till dina sidor igen, vi har verkligen ett gemensamt intresse vad som gäller gamla trädgårds böcker.

Hej Ruben, roligt att höra från dig. Jag ska titta på genast var du har skrivit om Daniels liv! Vad spännande!

Anonymous said...

I tend to get most of my gardening books from the library but that antique one is a real find! Love that NZ flax was trendy a century ago too... funny! Hm, that sale is tempting. What to do, I have no more shelf space!?!