I'll second "The Well Tended Perennial Garden". It's a great book. For me in zone 4 Mike Heger's book "Perennials for Cold Climates" is my absolute go to book.

The Well Tended Perennial Garden is excellent. Her information on pruning and maintaining perennials is unique to her book.
I really love Pamela Harper's books: "Time Tested Plants: 30 Years in a Four Season Garden" (This one is more for Southern Gardeners), "Designing with Perennials", and "Color Echoes". These last two books teach you how to design and plan beautiful gardens in a method that makes sense to the uninitiated, although she has fabulous plant info in them too. She's a wonderful teacher and her knowledge of plants is great. I re-read her books almost every winter and learn something new each time.

My oldest gardening book is also the best one on basic gardening I have read yet. It's called The 60 Minute Flower Garden (Jeff Ball and Charles Cresson). You can get it used through Amazon.com.

Also try Tracy DiSabato-Aust's other book "The Well Designed Mixed Garden." The appendixes in the back of the book are invaluable for planning your garden. They are broken up into Scientific & Common Names, Plants by Design Characteristics, and Plants by Maintenance Characteristics. So if you need a spring blooming yellow flowered tree, perennial or shrub she has them all listed in a column. And since she's an Ohio gardener, her plant selections work well for your zone.

After gardening for over 40 years I have to say that if I could only have ONE book on gardening it would, without a doubt, be the Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book. It is out of print but you can often find it used on ammmazon dot com (you can spell it correctly and I just don't want to get booted out of here for naming somewhere other than here!). This book is sheer common sense, has great ideas, is "green" and just the best!

Perennial All Stars
The 150 Best Perennials
for Great-Looking, Trouble-Free Gardens
By Jeff Cox.
Fabulous! Get This One! Gives Plant profiles, growing tips, combination suggestions, well illustrated, well written, comprehensive, Terrific!

And read Mrs. Greenthumbs (Cassandra Danz) for inspiration and laughs and the proper attitude.

If you study those two books for year as you do some digging, you'll soon be, um, well seasoned.

Good luck

Thanks for the suggestions! I will order them all through Interlibrary Loan from our tiny rural library, take a look, and then start buying some.

Anybody else who wants to chime in, please feel free. I need to build a gardening library.

Alleycallie

Well, I hesitated to name this book in this thread, because it really isn't a practical, how-to book at all. But, if you want a fun read, you must pick up a copy of The $64 Tomato. There were a few spots in there where I was laughing so hard I was crying. It helps if you know who Rasputin and Christopher Walken are...

:)
Dee

I have Mike Heger's Perennials for Cold Climates, but I find it limited in the number of perennials it covers.

My favorite book, and my absolute go to book - the one I invariably go to first - is Perennials for Every Purpose by Larry Hodgson. And for annuals, my favorite is Annuals for Every Purpose by Larry Hodgson (imagine that!). I've just about worn those books out. They Give Plant profiles, growing tips, combination suggestions, propagation techniques, bloom time, length of bloom, well illustrated, well written, comprehensive, Terrific!

I will third The Well-Tended Perennial Gardener, by Tracy DiSabato-Aust.

Sharon

You know I don't see it listed here so I must mention the 'Sunset Western Garden Book'. It is not a how-to book of course but rather the mother of all plant references in my opinion. I look at my copy all the time during the winter as I plot and plan for the following spring.

If you invest in one of these be sure you are purchasing the most current copy. In I believe 2006 a much anticipated updated version came out and the older versions are now on sale wherever you buy garden books. I should think you would want the most current one. I know I do!

Hope this helps.

Kate

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunset Western Garden Book.