I love my local library. In fact, I get pleasure not just from going to the library and reading the books I get there but also from the process of looking through their catalog regularly and adding books to my “for later shelf.” There’s something satisfying about even just learning about which books are out there that I might get to read someday. So, I thought that I’d head over to my virtual bookshelf and let you know about 13 gardening books currently waiting there for me.

13 Gardening Books on My To Be Read Shelf

There are actually more than two dozen gardening books on my SFPL “For Later” shelf. However, here are the top thirteen on my list:

1. The Climate Change Garden by Sally Morgan

2. To Stand and Stare by Andrew Timothy O’Brien

3. The Joy of Gardening: the Everyday Zen of Mowing the Lawn by Ellen Mary

With a background in integral psychology, I am a proponent of the benefits of mindfulness. I have a busy mind and I don’t always practice what I preach. However, I regularly read books that remind me to get back in touch with the slower side of life. I like books that teach me again how to “be here now.” This one looks like a must read for me.

4. Growing Joy by Maria Failla

5.Creating a Garden Retreat: An Artist’s Guide to Planting An Outdoor Sanctuary by Virginia Johnson

Virginia Johnson shares her personal garden journey, from a small city lot to a beautiful and welcoming oasis. Her garden is wild and carefree, with hornbeams, peonies, hollyhocks, roses, and hydrangeas. Johnson explains her process with ease and clarity, bringing her ideas to life through words and illustrations. The book is organized into clear chapters about trees, flowers, seasons, and more. It sounds so inspiring!

6. The Philosophy of Gardening by Karen Caruana

This one doesn’t actually have a very extensive description on the library website. In fact, all it says is, “A collection of essays about different gardening philosophies and practices, mostly from a German point of view.” However, that’s enough to pique my interest. I am so curious to see what is inside those pages!

7. The Regenerative Garden by Stephanie Rose

This one’s subtitle helps explain what it is all about: “80 Practical Projects for Creating a Self-sustaining Garden Ecosystem.”

A healthy, organic, regenerative garden is a self-sustaining ecosystem where everything works together. The goal of permaculture is to turn your garden into a functioning ecosystem that is less reliant on external resources and can sustain itself through many seasons.

The book’s projects cover six living elements of the garden: soil, water, plants, climate, ethics, and community. They reduce workload, conserve water and other resources, and create a habitat for wildlife. Projects include intensive planting, living mulches, self-watering planters, rain gardens, and compost systems.

8. Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies. Northern California by George Oxford Miller

I live in Northern California so this one makes a lot of practical sense for me. Plus, I love butterflies. I like birds. And I know that bees are important. A friend of mine has a garden here that is a Certified Wildlife Habitat. I imagine that this book has tips along the lines of what she incorporated in her amazing space.

9. Grow More Food by Colin McCrate

10. No-dig Gardening: Raised Beds, Layered Gardens, and Other No-till Techniques by Bella Line

The book says that it teaches you everything you need to know in order to start and care for a kitchen garden. No-dig gardening is better for the environment, easier on your back, and can produce an abundance of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. So, it’s worth reading about, right?

11. The Elegant & Edible Garden by Linda Vater

As you might notice, I’m often enticed by the title candor subtitle of a book. The subtitle of this one is: “Design a Dream Kitchen Garden to Fit Your Personality, Desires, and Lifestyle.” That just captures my imagination!

12. Striking Succulent Gardens: Plants and Plans for Designing Your Low-maintenance Landscape by Gabriel Frank

I love succulents. I’m originally from the Arizona desert, so naturally I find myself drawn to cacti and succulents of all kinds. Also, they’re easier to grow than many other plants. Since I’m not really great with plants, that’s best for me. I think that even if I don’t learn a lot from this, I’d love just looking at the images inside!

13.Garden for the Senses by Kendra Wilson

Do you read gardening books? Any that you recommend me to add to my virtual To Be Read shelf?

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I have a confession. One of my favorite weird pastimes is going through all of the new books available at the library and placing any that I might read on my “For Later” shelf. I do this weekly. And I admit that there are more books on the shelves than I could ever actually read. However, I do also weekly browse my shelf and request some of the books, so I do end up reading a lot of them. Today, I thought I’d share with you some of the gardening books that are on my For Later shelf at the local library.

The Urban Garden: 101 Ways to Grow Food and Beauty in the City by Kathy Gentz

Obviously, I live in an urban area. I don’t have a huge yard to garden in. However, I have a deck, windowsill pots, and access to local community gardens. Therefore, I’m always interested in ideas about gardening in the city. I’m curious to see what might inspire me among the more than 100 ideas suggested in this book.

Companion Planting for Beginners: Pair your Plants for A Bountiful, Chemical-free Vegetable Garden by Brian Lowell

I love the idea of learning how to listen to nature when designing a garden. I remember during a vineyard tour learning about how they planted certain plants at the end of each row because they could see if there was any threat to the grapes by first checking out what was going on with those plants. That’s always stuck with me. This book seems like an amazing expansion upon that education.

The Regenerative Garden: 80 Practical Projects for Creating a Self-sustaining Garden Ecosystem by Stephanie Rose

Is her last name really Rose? That made me smile. In any case, I love DIY stuff, and I’m really curious about this idea of “practical projects.” Plus, it’s important to design gardens that work with nature. I’m really into xeriscaping and not planting non-native species. So, I think I’ll learn a lot from this book.

Sustainable Garden Projects, Tips and Advice for the Eco-conscious Gardener by Maryann Boswall

Here’s another one that’s along the same theme as the last. Whenever I see a book like this, I immediately add it to my library To Read shelf without hesitation.

Wild: The Naturalistic Garden by Noel Kingsbury

This seems to be another one similar to the two above. My library’s description of it includes:

“This is the first comprehensive overview of a new planting approach that is wild and natural by nature, reflecting the global turn towards sustainability and the current zeitgeist in garden design.”

It’s a look at forty different gardens from this perspective. I believe that I could learn a lot from this book.

Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto by Leslie Buck

This is a book that I’ve actually already gotten from the library and have sitting right next to me to read soon. Memoirs are my very favorite genre. This one is about a female American gardener who went and trained in Japanese gardens.

Color in and Out of the Garden Watercolor Practices for Painters, Gardeners, and Nature Lovers by Lorene Edwards Forkner

I’m not actually a painter. However, I’m an artist (fiber and mixed media as well as writing). And I’m always inspired by creative exercises in different mediums. So, I probably won’t get out the paints to work along with this book, and yet I’m certain that it will give me inspiration.

Royal Gardens of the World by Mark Lane: 21 Celebrated Gardens From the Alhambra to Highgrove and Beyond

I’ve never honestly thought about Royal Gardens much. However, I imagine it would be like going on a vacation in the mind to flip through the pages of this book. Therefore, it’s on my list!

Help me build my wish list! What are some of your favorite gardening books?

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Last month I mentioned that I’m working with the book A Garden to Dye For to learn more about growing plants that you can use to natural dye fabrics. One of the first important concepts is learning about how well or how long a plant’s color is likely to adhere to the fabric that you’re dyeing. After all, you don’t want to grow a plant for dyes that will immediately fade, right? So, I’m learning about colorfast and fugitive dyes.

Colorfast vs. Fugitive Plant Dyes

You can technically dye fabric with almost any plant. However, some plants simply work better than others. Basically, colorfast plants create a natural dye that will easily stick to your fabric and won’t fade very much. In contrast, fugitive plant dyes won’t stick or stay on fabric for very long at all. You an still use fugitive plant dyes, but you’ll usually use them for other crafting projects, such as coloring homemade play dough, rather than for dyeing fabric.

Colorfast, Lightfast, Washfast

In the aforementioned book, author Chris McLaughlin notes that we should consider not just how colorfast a plant’s dyes will be but also whether they are lightfast and washfast. Colorfast means the color will stick and not fade. Lightfast refers to color that doesn’t fade much even after frequent exposure to light. Washfast, as you might guess, refers to colors that don’t fade much even after many times of washing the fabric.

McLaughlin emphasizes, “a color might be one and not the other” of these three things. Solstice Studio notes that sometimes when a plant is one but not the other, we call it “semi-fugitive.”

Common Fugitive Plant Dyes

Berries are so beautiful as plants that it’s tempting to try to dye fabric with them. However, they are often fugitive dyes. The color rarely sticks.

Other common examples of plants that are less than ideal for dyeing, according to Solstice Studio, include:

• Basil
• Beets
• Black beans
• Black rice
• Citrus
• Pomegranate kernels
• Red cabbage
• Roses
• Spinach
• Turmeric
• Wine

Good Colorfast Plants for Dyeing

In contrast, though, there are many great plants for fabric dyeing. Obviously, McLaughlin’s entire book is about this, so I can’t cover it all in a paragraph. However, some of the most popular options include:

• Marigolds, dahlias, yarrow, and goldenrod for yellow and orange colors
• Hollyhock, lichen, Japanese maple and madder for reds and purples
• Walnuts and pomegranate skin for shades of brown; eucalyptus and oak for more orange or reddish brown
• Avocado for pink
• Indigo for blue
• Mint for green

Factors Affecting Colorfastness of Plants

You want to start by choosing plants with good colorfastness and/or lightfastness and/or wash fastness. However, do note that other factors come into play. How much of the plant you use to dye, the temperature of the dye bath, whether or not you add mordant or modifiers, the fabric you use, and how long you leave the fabric in the plant dye bath are just a few examples fo those additional factors.

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Several years ago my sister sent me a wonderful gift. She’s one of those people who is so great at picking out the perfect gifts for people. The gift was a book called “A Garden to Dye For.” She also sent me a set of Japanese Indigo seeds grown locally to her area. Somehow, all of this time has passed, and I haven’t used this, yet. However, I’m determined to finally enjoy it this spring.

Garden to Dye For

“A Garden to Dye For” by Chris McLaughlin has a book subtitle that tells you exactly what this book is all about:

“How to Use Plants from the Garden to Create Natural Colors for Fabrics and Fibers”

In the introduction, the author explains that “the plan for this book is to bridge the gap between mainstream gardeners and the world of hand crafters.” The author explains that there are plenty of other great books that tell you about how to use plant dyes in fiber arts. However, most of them don’t address the home gardener. This book does.

Plants for Fabric Dyes = Slow Crafting

I am a huge fan of the slow crafting movement. Crafting itself, of course, contributes to a slower way of life. When you sit down and make your own clothes, blankets, or home decor, you slow down. You stop contributing to the world of fast fashion.

As time goes on, you get more and more interested in ways to further slow down the craft. In other words, you want to get your hands dirty every step of the way. So, for example, I crochet. I started off buying various synthetic yarns from the store. From there, I moved on to buying organic, natural, sustainable yarn from local farms and independent dyers. From there, you can slow things down further by learning to spin and dye your own yarn. You might move on to get a small farm for raising your own fiber. And / or you might plant a garden to create your own natural dyes for your yarn.

The more you get involved in each process, the more you embrace and enjoy the benefits of the slow craft movement. It’s one thing, and an amazing thing, of course, to knit or crochet your own sweater. It’s another level entirely to grow the plants and dye the yarn before you even get to knitting.

7 Chapters In A Garden to Dye For

There are seven chapters in the book. These further indicate all that there is to learn about this unique niche of gardening for the fiber arts:

1. An Excuse To Plant More Plants

This is a more in-depth introduction to the concept of planting a garden specifically to use for fabric yarn dyeing.

2. All About Color

This chapter explores the different ways that you can dye fiber. In doing so, it also provides great information for how well different plants are going to work for different methods.

3. 12 Flowering Plants for Fiber Dyeing

In this chapter, we get a more in-depth look at working with twelve different flowering plants. Learn how to grow marigolds, hollyhocks, zinnia and more for this purpose.

4. Edible Plants for Fiber Dyeing

Do you prefer to grow fruits and vegetables? Wonderful. Many of these are great for dyeing as well. This chapter covers 15 options.

5. And Herbs Can Dye As Well

Herbs are another option for a beautiful garden that also produces amazing fiber dye options. There are 16 different herbs discussed in this section. One of those is Japanese Indigo. As I mentioned, when my sister gifted me this book, she also gifted me a set of these seeds!

6. Your Landscape Already Grows Dyes

This chapter is all about looking at the native plants around you to find dyes in nature. Eucalyptus, lichen, juniper and willow offer a few examples.

7. Planning & Planting a Dye Garden

Before I read through this book, I would have assumed that this chapter was the longest. However, it’s actually the shortest. It expands upon what the rest of the book already discussed. There are some general tips. Moreover, there are specific suggested layouts for different gardens. This chapter may come at the end but it’s really just the beginning!

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I’m a huge fan of ebooks. I’m so into them that I actually have TWO e-readers! One for my library books and another for advanced reader copies (ARCs). Many people out there are willing to share their gardening knowledge. These free gardening ebooks are an excellent choice for frugal gardeners, people new to gardening, and even just people who want a bit of inspiration before they get their hands dirty.

Most of these books are available for free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. A few of them are free without one. And a few books aren’t free but still under $5!

Read on for a brief description of each book and what you can hope to learn from reading it.

Free Gardening Ebooks

Garden Potpourri: Gardening Tips from the Easy-Growing Gardening Series

This under $5 ebook includes a collection of tips to suit both advanced and beginner gardeners. If you’re sad about the gardening season ending, this might be a nice way to remind yourself that a new season is on its way.

Urban Homesteading: The Ultimate Homestead Guide to Becoming a City Homesteader

This title is available for free with a Kindle Unlimited membership. If you’ve always dreamed of having your own homestead in the city, this is a good place to start.

Greenhouse Gardening: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Gardener’s Manual for Beginners

This Kindle Unlimited ebook is all about how to get started with growing fruit and veg inside a greenhouse. You’ll get tips on how to plan your greenhouse and even how to make money growing inside your new structure.

Keyhole Gardening: An Introduction to Growing Vegetables In A Keyhole Garden

Learn about this no-dig gardening method that’s perfect for small spaces. This is a great gardening method for frugal gardeners who don’t want to spend a ton of resources on growing plants.

Growing Food In Winter: An Introduction To Growing Food Crops Out Of Season

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge nerd for winter gardening. When you live somewhere with a short growing season, it’s nice to know that there are possibilities for growing beyond the summertime. This gardening ebook covers a host of subjects, including winter crops, hot bed gardening, and planting times.

Container Gardening Month by Month: A Monthly Listing of Tips and Ideas for Creating a Professional Container Garden

One of the most challenging aspects of gardening is knowing what to do when. Keeping track of what needs to get done can be overwhelming—especially if you’re new to gardening. This ebook gives you monthly checklists so you can keep on task and focus on taking care of your plants.

Container Gardening for Beginners: A Guide to Growing Your Own Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, and Edible Flowers

I love growing in containers! Pots are easy to move around, and plants are a lot more manageable when kept in containers. This book is a great choice if you’re new to growing in containers and need a bit of wisdom to get you going.