Plant Life: Growing a Garden in the Pacific Northwest [Paperback]

Valerie Easton (Author), Richard Hartlage (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2002

You won’t find potted petunias or rigid rows of hot-pink impatiens in this gorgeous new book. Instead, Plant Life features 80 luscious photographs of author Valerie Easton’s own garden (also seen in Better Homes and Gardens magazine). Drawn from her popular column of the same name in the Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine, Plant Life invites the world into Easton’s garden, offering readers a personal perspective from a master gardener. Organized around the twelve months, Plant Life covers a wide array of topics including climbing plants, leaves that aren’t green, containers, garden paths, pests, and much more. Each chapter contains several essays -- some instructive, others philosophical -- relevant to that time of year, and features a “Now in Bloom” section focusing on plants at their prime and illustrated with full-color photographs.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Valerie Easton is an author, Master Gardener, and Horticultural Librarian at the Miller Library of the Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington. She is the garden columnist for the Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine and currently writes for various national publications. Richard Hartlage is the Director/Curator of the Miller Botanical Garden and a widely published garden writer and photographer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books (January 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570613052
• ISBN-13: 978-1570613050
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,453,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Valerie Easton is a weekly garden columnist for Pacific Northwest Magazine of The Seattle Times. Her own low-maintenance garden, the muse for this book, has been published in The New York Times, This Old House, and Horticulture. She has contributed articles on gardens, homes, and the people who make them to a variety of magazines, including Metropolitan Home, Fine Gardening, and Gardens Illustrated. Valerie trained as a Master Gardener and was for eighteen years the horticultural librarian at the University of Washington in Seattle. She gardens, teaches yoga, and blogs (www.valeaston.com) in the village of Langley, on Whidbey Island, Washington. Her previous book is A Pattern Garden (www.apatterngarden.com).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All Seasons Reading....., April 4, 2002

By 

David N. Lewis "Little and Lewis" (Bainbridge Island, Wa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plant Life: Growing a Garden in the Pacific Northwest (Paperback)

For years I start every Sunday with a cup of coffee and Valerie Easton's gardening column in our Seattle Times Pacific Magazine. It was with great anticipation and excitement that I bought her newest book, Plant Life, a collection of her new and past writings on the garden. Her writing is both personal and informative, humorous and stimulating. The book is organized by months and seasons and would be very useful in planning and planting a year round garden. The helpful photos by Richard Hartlage are first rate and lush in saturated color. I found many suggestions and ideas that I would try in my own garden. Her personal observations about plants and experiences in her garden opened my eyes to my garden and the "beauty" that I had created in my own world. I highly recommend this book to both active and arm chair gardeners.....

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gardener's Life, April 6, 2002

By 

John T. Henry (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plant Life: Growing a Garden in the Pacific Northwest (Paperback)

An excellent read! As an experienced gardener who is new to the climate of the Pacific Northwest, reading Plant Life was the perfect way to learn many of the nuances of gardening in this region. Valerie Easton not only speaks from considerable skill and practice, but also knows how gardeners think and the questions we ponder. Her essays amuse, inform and broaden your thinking, all at the comfort level of a neighborly chat over afternoon tea.

Gleaned from the author's highly popular weekly newspaper column, the text is well supported by the top notch photographs of her own garden (taken by Richard Hartlage, a fine author in his own right - see "Bold Visions for the Garden"). For those who wish to expand their gardening horizons, or simply enjoy good garden writing, I highly recommend this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intimidating, but inspiring!, June 23, 2003

By 

"alicat613" (Bellevue, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plant Life: Growing a Garden in the Pacific Northwest (Paperback)

I received this book as a gift, being newly into gardening in the NW, and at first thumbing through I was a little puzzled. It appears to be more of musings then a 'real' garden book and I wondered how useful it would be for actual gardening. But once I started to read, I found this book to be such a delight! So many of the passages made me smile, so many made me want to laugh and all were inspiring. I really enjoy being able to pick this up and read a little on 'spooky' plants or the use of variegated leaves. This and the Western Sunset garden book are helping me make a great new garden here!