A great dirty book
By Elizabeth Licata
The Garden Primer, by Barbara Damrosch
Workman Press, 820 pages
Barbara Damrosch’s revised edition of The Garden Primer says “all-organic” on the cover, but the original issue probably deserved that term almost as much. In fact, most gardeners’ copies of it are literally organic, given the amount of real dirt that liberally adorns the pages.

The Garden Primer was my first gardening book, purchased only a few weeks after I figured out the difference between a perennial and an annual. It covers everything, from the first trowel to the final harvest, with special attention paid to vegetable growing. Food crops are Damrosch’s chief love, and she writes about them every week in her Washington Post column. But this book is for anyone who plants anything, striking a perfect balance between sophistication and accessibility. Most of all, it’s fun. It is not the specific instructions that I remember most from the first time I read it; what stays with me is the engaging familiarity with which Damrosch discusses plants and methodologies. She says lilies remind her of basketball players on crutches. She talks about some seasons when she just doesn’t have time to fuss with her roses. This was a book that I read like a novel, for relaxation and entertainment as well as for advice.

So with a book that was perfect to begin with, what more could you want? Simply this: more! And that’s what we get: almost 200 pages more, with most of the added material in expanded plant lists, featuring more native varieties. Damrosch also stresses sustainable means of maintaining a healthy soil, changing what had been a focus on traditional double-digging (ouch, my back!) soil amendment strategies to a top-down method of added layers of compost and mulch. She leaves out all references to commercial pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, and encourages gardeners to plant species and employ strategies that will sustain wildlife in their gardens. Best of all are the plant lists organized by genre: trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, annuals, wildflowers, even houseplants. Every true gardener loves a good plant list; these are especially enjoyable with plenty of cultivars I’d never heard of and many I’d love to try.

Here’s an excerpt from her description of Katsura, a tree I’d never heard of: “This tree is not nearly as well known as it should be. It has rounded leaves … similar to those of an aspen or redbud … they have a wonderful reddish color, especially beautiful when the sun is behind them.”

Western New Yorkers should keep in mind that Damrosch gardens in Maine, in an even less forgiving zone than ours. That makes this book even more indispensable.
Buy The Garden Primer for yourself and for your gardening friends, especially the newbies. It will become an indispensable fixture—on the bedside table in winter and on the potting bench during the growing season.

Elizabeth Licata is editor of Buffalo Spree.


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