Old Gardening Books

There was a terrible accident involving a bookcase made out of reclaimed wood, with four shelves, three that were movable, and doors inset with seeded glass to give it an old look.

A week or so ago, I cleared the spot where the delivery persons would carefully place this bookcase in the dining room. They arrived on time, came in to make sure their path was clear and then went back to the truck to get the bookcase.

As I stood at the open door waiting for the delivery persons to gently lower the bookcase from the delivery truck and bring it into the house, I heard a crash followed by the tinkling of broken glass.

“That cannot be good”, I said to myself.

I went out to the truck to find the two delivery persons standing next to the bookcase, the one made out of reclaimed wood, with four shelves, three that were movable, and doors inset with seeded glass to give it an old look. Only now it no long had glass in the door and three of the four legs looked as though a beaver had decided to snack on them.

“Ma’am, you may not want to be around when I call my supervisor… blah blah blah.  We’ll get you another one.”

No, I explained, you probably won’t be getting me another one as this was the last one, a closeout.  They put it back on the truck, repeated their apologies and pulled away. Sure enough, the salesperson from the furniture store called a few days ago with the bad news.  They cannot get another one, nor can she find a bookcase like it. 

And so my quest for a bookcase continues.  At least for now I have all my old gardening books lined up and stacked up in one location, except for a dozen or so that are here and there around the house.

I am going through several of them as I put the final touches on a presentation that I’m calling “Timeless Tips and Treasures for Today’s Gardens”.

If I named the presentation the way they named old gardening books back in the day, I would actually call it “Timeless Tips and Treasures for Today’s Gardens from the 19th and 20th Centuries Including Wisdom, Lore, and Ageless Advice for Every Gardener”. Actually, I will probably call it that, anyway.

I have an abundance of material to choose from and debated about how best to winnow it down to 45 minutes or so of useful information.  For this go around, I think I’ll stick with a half dozen writers – Lawrence, Bennett, Quackenbush, Bailey, Ellacombe, and Westcott.  

Although…

I have several books on just violets, violas, and pansies, some of my favorite flowers.

But not everyone loves these flowers enough to listen to 45 minutes of material about them.  Perhaps someday I can present on “All I learned from gardening I learned from violets”. 

Or I could go back only fifty years or so to the 1960’s.

But I’m not particularly excited about calling a book “old” if it was published in my lifetime.

I could just focus on “The Garden Library” from the early 1900’s

I think I have this entire set, thanks to a reader who sent me the list of all the volumes included. Click, click, click, I bought all of them in December.  Ida Dandridge Bennett wrote two of the volumes for this set, which is how I ended up finding out about it.

I’ll be presenting this particular topic, “Timeless Tips and Treasures for Today’s Gardens from the 19th and 20th
Centuries Including Wisdom, Lore, and Ageless Advice for Every
Gardener” three times in the next few months, and then adapting the material for another program in June.

While I’m busy finalizing this presentation, looking for a bookcase, and ordering seeds, I may need a couple of garden fairies to post on my blog so it doesn’t get stale.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of garden fairies and book fairies here, especially when I open up all these old gardening books.

“Mind the book fairies when you open up old gardening books.”