By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Illustrations courtesy Lowry-James Rare Prints & Books, ABAA 

Botanical prints are an endless delight—especially the old ones. Many are hand-colored lithographs or engravings made not long after subject plants became known, or when there were big enough collections of plants like roses to merit a pictorial catalog.

All make wonderful holiday gifts, when you can find them. Lowry-James Rare Prints and Books is a Northwest source I've recently learned about. Operated by Priscilla Lowry-Gregor and based on Whidbey Island, the business has about 100,000 images, so what you see online represents just  the tip of the iceberg. Nearly all were made during the Age of Discovery (1500–1900). You can get a wide selection of illustrations, matted, for $150 or so, but prices run into the thousands.

I asked Priscilla to name some of her favorite pieces, and she gave me some links you might enjoy following:

Sir Joseph Paxton's Magazine of Botany London 1836-45
Van Houtte's Flore des Serres; Ghent, 1845–1888
Miss Giraud's Flowers of Shakespeare; London, 1845
Miss Giraud's Flowers of Milton; London, 1846
Fruits of New York State; Albany, 1851
George Brookshaw's Pomona Britannica; London, 1817

She also offers a collection of botanical books.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Authored by award-winning food writer Barry Estabrook, Tomatoland (Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, 2011; $19.99) offers a  riveting overview of our most-loved vegetable, from its humble origins on the west coast of South America to its place as a $5 billion-per-year fresh market crop.

While the book does expose commercial excesses in Florida tomato production, its subtitle—How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed our Most Alluring Fruit—is more provocative than accurate.

•Estabrook shows how and why the flavor was bred out of commercial fresh tomatoes, but he also shows how market forces are bringing tastier varieties back into the market.

•He documents the contemporary American slave trade (take that literally) that supports part of the industry—but he also shows how it's being addressed by both exploited farmworkers on the ground and by law enforcement agencies.

•The book covers the horrific birth defects caused by exposure of farm laborers to tomato pesticides—but it also introduces us to an unlikely alliance of illiterate illegal aliens and socially conscious lawyers who team up to force the kinds of change that have already improved conditions for workers in the fields.

Though most of the book it set in Florida, Estabrook also takes us on hunts for wild tomatoes in the deserts of Chile and Peru, and touches briefly on tomato researchers and the industry they support in California.

Written in the spirit of Michael Pollan's ag books, Tomatoland will change the way you think about tomatoes, and probably convince you to grow more of your own. It also reinforces a notion I've had for a long time: eat fresh, locally grown food in season and you'll be healthier and happier for it.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

If you are a regular reader of Fresh Dirt the name Ivette Soler might be familiar to you.  You might have seen our review of her book The Edible Front Yard.

Or you might have read about her recipe for Tuscan kale and potato soup.  If you missed it, check it out.  It's become one of my standbys.

You might also have seen photos of Ivette's own wonderful garden in our July issue.

If you missed it, check it out on our website.

Now the Germinatrix, as Soler calls herself on her blog of the same name, is giving you a chance to get a copy of her book for free.  Plus all the goodies shown in the photo below.  I am especially intrigued by the custom seed collection of twenty of Ivette's favorite ornamental edibles from Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply. 

Oh, and that painting, Soler did that herself.

For a chance at winning the package, go to Ivette's post re the contest and add a comment. Click here.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

As I mentioned in the post above, one of the things I love about Rancho Los Alamitos is that it's not so grand you can't imagine living there.

The other thing I've always admired is the property's long history.  Someone has always considered this a desirable location from the Tongva Native Americans through the Franciscan missionaries to restless New Englanders who migrated West to seek their fortunes like the Bixbys.  The new educational center at The Rancho opening in 2012 I mentioned above will be dedicated to this story.

In the meantime the excellent new book shown above will take you there through words and tons of great historic photos and illustrations. Its authors are Claudia Jurmain, director of special projects and publications at The Rancho; David Lavender, the author of over 40 books on the American West; and Larry L. Meyer, professor emeritus of journalism at California State University, Long Beach

Look for Rancho Los Alamitos; Ever Changing, Always the Same at The Rancho.  You can also purchase directly from the publisher, Heydey Books.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

The lawnless front yard shown above and to the left caught my eye while reading the useful new book, Reimagining the California Lawn: Water-conserving Plants, Practices, and Designs by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O'Brien.  (See our review of the book here.)  So I decided to call the Ventura landscape architect, Jack Kiesel of Kiesel Design, to find out more about it.

Looks like Kiesel had a pretty generous set-back to work with in these photos, doesn't it?

Not exactly, as it turns out. 

The front yard, as the below "before" shows, is actually tiny.  A more complex design than a mono-planting of turf just makes it seem bigger because it gives the eye more to study.

What the homeowner, David Van Hoy, who was also the architect who designed the house, requested was a design that was bold but also free-flowing and softly textured to contrast with the right angles and contemporary materials of the house.

Kiesel came up with a design that emulated a stream bed running through the property without using any actual water.  The rose-pink Echeveria `Afterglow' represent the deepest part of the river and blue-gray Festuca glauca the shallower edges.  Contouring the yard so this area is slightly deeper and using a green-toned gravel (Surfgreen) as mulch furthers the illusion.

The slightly taller dark green grass (Sesleria) represents the banks of the river--I've repeated the first image so you don't have to skim back up unless you want a closer look.  And the still taller blue oat grass and larger succulents (aeonium and agaves) stand in for sand bars or islands.

Kiesel also gave the homeowners a new outdoor seating area--a small patio that doubles as a foyer.  The slate pavers continue indoors.

The concrete pavers lead to the main entrance of the house. 

To make the driveway disappear into the landscape, Kiesel used the same pavers for that space with clumps of small bunch grass planted between them to make the whole space look continuous.  See below.

All in all, a lot more interesting than lawn, wouldn't you say?

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

You're coming, right? 

Here are all the details about the weekend. 

Other than speaking on the home and garden stage at 2:15 on Saturday and noon on Sunday, I will be tethered to the test garden, ready to show it off and answer any questions. Come say hi!

Highlights in the test garden include a guest installation by Matthew Levesque, author of The Revolutionary Yardscape. He's built us some amazing decking out of all recycled materials. He'll also be speaking on the home and garden stage at 12:45 on Sunday.

We also have lots of new plants and plenty of ideas on how to mix ornamentals with your edibles. 

See you there!

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

photo by Stephen Orr

We showed an ottoman made out of turf grass in a recent post.  Well, this is sort of the same idea on a grander scale.

The Austin garden seen here, designed by Dylan Robertson of D-Crain Design and Construction, is, overall, conscientiously drought-tolerant.  It uses hardscaping generously and the majority of the plants--agaves, acacia, and creeping thyme, for instance--are quite drought-tolerant. 

It does indulge in a patch of turf, however.  And, by elevating that patch and framing it with walls of carbon steel, it makes the lush square of visually cooling green a big deal, a focal point, a conversation piece, a statement.

 Or, as Stephen Orr, the author ofTomorrow's Garden--the book this example comes from--puts it, "Set off this way, a patch of ordinary turf becomes a sculptural object in the design of the garden rather than a space-filling background."

This particular garden happens to be in a front yard, and I can easily imagine neighbors walking by plopping down on this inviting platform for a quick chat with the homeowners or guests lingering here before heading home. 

And, if this elevated turf were in the backyard instead, can't you image plopping down on it for a quick nap?  Gives a whole new meaning to "raised bed."

For another example from Stephen Orr's book, Tomorrow's Garden, of how good design and sustainable gardening can work together, see this previous post.

Orr's book is full of similarly inspiring ideas.  You can find out more about it here.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Pacific Feast by Jennifer Hahn (Skipstone, Seattle, 2011; $21.95) is the most recent volume about foraging in the Pacific Northwest. (The first is Doug Benoliel's updated Northwest Foraging, reviewed here in a post last week.)

Though Hahn is covering the same geographic territory as Benoliel and includes many of the same plants, she includes the edible trees, seaweeds, mushrooms, and shellfish that he ignores. Hahn also has a different and much more extensive set of recipes for her comestibles, most from—or adapted from—some of the most well-known chefs on the west coast. She starts you out, for example, with "a nettle martini made from gin, sugar water, Douglas fir-instilled brandy, and nettle purée," and moves you on to everything from cornmeal-encrusted oyster mushrooms to bull kelp pickles and razor clam risotto.

The book focuses on native plants and creatures that aren't likely to be depleted by harvesting, especially if you follow her 5% rule (never take more than one in twenty plants, or more than five percent of any one plant). It also includes plenty of common edible garden weeds that, by definition, can't be overharvested.

Mac Smith's excellent photos will help you with plant identifications, and probably inspire you to get out there and start harvesting wild things yourself.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

In 1974, nurseryman and native plant specialist Doug Benoliel wrote a classic guidebook about wild plants you can eat. After almost 40 years, Benoliel has revised and updated Northwest Foraging (Skipstone, Seattle, 2011; $16.95), including truly excellent plant illustrations by Mark Orsen.

The book covers both native plants and introduced species, with advice about sustainable harvest sustainably and scrumptious preparation (there are lots of recipes). The volume closes with a section about poisonous plants so that you can compare edibles like camass and lady fern with their evil twins (death camass and bracken fern, in these examples).

I notice that Benoliel’s descriptions of some 60 wild edibles include all those on Euell Gibbons’ top five list (cattails, dandelions, lamb's quarters, rose hips, and stinging nettles). But his sources go way deeper than pop culture: he studied botany at the University of Washington, and drew on several ethnobotany texts that he references, so you too can dig deeper if you have the inclination.

Northwest Foraging also looks at the nutrition of wild plants compared with domesticated crops, covers drying and storing, and has a seasonal harvest chart that will lead you to a feast of wild edibles almost any day of the year.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

When they're not hiking across scorching sand or slogging through ankle-deep mud, horticultural explorers seem to be writing about plants.   If you enjoyed our story about plant explorers on page 44 of the May issue (or you can read it here), get to know these plant geeks further through their books.

Greg Starr, shown above, is the owner of Starr Nursery in Tucson, Arizona.  His nursery specializes in plants with low water needs suitable for landscaping in southern Arizona.

Much of what you'll find there he discovered himself traipsing through the deserts of the Southwest or Mexico.

Starr's extensive field experience is evident in his latest book, Cool Plants for Hot Gardens, an encylopedia of garden plants well suited to Southwestern gardens and landscapes. 

It's fun to read Starr's field notes even if you have no plans to be a plant explorer yourself.  ("It is always a pleasant surprise to be bumping along a dirt track or scouring the canyons in northeastern Mexico and spot the brilliant red flowers of Hibiscus martianus peeking out through the low shrubs along the roadside.")  You'll appreciate his useful landscape applications and precautions as well.

Cool Plants for Hot Gardens is available from Rio Nuevo Publishers.

  Sean Hogan, shown above, is the owner of Cistus Design & Nursery based in Sauvie Island, near Portland.

Hogan, as far as I can tell loves everything.  But one of his passions is broad-leaved evergreens.  "I think the Pacific Northwest uses way too many deciduous plants," he says.  "Our climate is warmer than England or the East Coast."

That passion is reflected in "Trees for All Seasons" which demonstrates in words and pictures how many evergreen choices there are beyond conifers.  The book is from Timber Press.  You can read more about it here.

Daniel Hinkley, shown here on a mountaintop in Sikkim in northeastern India, is best-known as one of the founders of the Kingston, Washington-based mail-order nursery, Heronswood.

His plant explorations take Hinkley all over the globe  and he writes about some of his favorite discoveries in Explorer's Garden.  Expect the same ardent prose we all loved in Heronwood's annual mail order catalog.  And don't you still miss it?

Explorer's Garden is published by Timber Press.  Read more about it here.