My absolute favorite is "Passalong Plants" by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing and a close second is the one put out by Southern Living. To me, they're indispensable to a Southern gardener. Also, "Bulletproof Flowers for the South" by Jim Wilson; "Perennial Garden Color" by William C. Welch; and "Gardening with Native Plants of the South" by Sally Wasowski w/Andy Wasowski. Welch, I believe, also has a great one on roses for the southern gardener.

Thanks, Linda! I'm trying to put together a wishlist for hubby for my birthday. Think I'll try a couple of these!

Karen

Definitely get the Southern Living Gardening Book by Steve Bender. The new edition just came out. He spoke to a meeting I attended recently and said that there are lots of changes and extras in this updated version. Of course all my notes are in my old version, so I may wait a while to upgrade. This book is a good all purpose reference for a beginning gardener and an advanced gardener looking for new inspiration. Check out the Big Book of Herbs too.

North Carolina Gardener's Guide by Toby Bost, most of the info would probably apply to SC. The Southern Living Gardening Book is a must have.

Although it's not new, The Southern Gardener's Book of Lists--The Best Plants for All Your Needs, Wants, and Whims by Lois Trigg Chaplin is great.

As the title implies, it catagorizes plants by characteristics, such as plants that thrive in certain conditions (example--best plants for dry shade), or have certain growth habits (example--best groundcover shrubs, or columnular(sp?) trees), or have certain features (example--colorful fall berries or fragrance).

It was recommended to me by a couple of landscape pros, and I have found it extremely useful!

Cheers - KMc

My favorite book for plant identification is a copy of Botanica that I got on sale really cheap a few years ago at either Borders or Barnes & Noble. It is usually on sale at both for $19.95, but now goes under the title of The Plant Book. The chief editor is R. G. Turner, Jr.

Any book authored by Pam Harper.

I agree with that, Maryl, and love all the others too. A really excellent reference, though, is Allan Armitage's Herbaceous Perennial Plants. He's southern and plant data includes much of specific interest to southern gardeners. I'm disappointed in his newer Annuals, Biennials (etc.), as that additional "for the South" info was excluded from that one. Still a good generic reference, however.

Not exactly a referrence book but Lauren Springers book
The Undaunted Garden is my favorite gardening book. It has great information on native and drought tolerant plants, plenty of lists of plants that thrive in special conditions and the back has good advise on starting seeds etc. Also,
lots of georgeous pics.

MUST HAVE "A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants", by Brickell. It has EVERYTHING, with lots of photos and propogation info. It's like the internet in one big fat book.

SC Gardener, In addition to some books mentioned above, among my fav references are university hort sites. Rather than keep going back to look, I've started collecting information that I find useful and putting it on a web site. There's an annuals page called 'Sandy Bedders' with a sub page of more annuals. There's also a page called 'Perennials Persist' with three sub pages with tables. Salvias and Daffodils have their own pages, too.

By the way, you and I have a common birthday. Belated Happy Birthday.

Nell

Here is a link that might be useful: Nell's Garden Pages