(Part 3) Best flower gardening books according to redditors

I wish I had good news for you, but I don't think I have any chocoensis left.

Another name for the list: Troy Meyers.

I don't see any flasks of chocoensis on his site, but he may have plants in the future.

Troy kinda needs support right now. I've also offered a copy of this from my personal collection to help raise money for Troy. $250 donation to Troy, and you get a copy of the book, domestic (delivered) or international (+shipping).

Thank you very much. African violets can bloom constantly if given the right conditions but I would guess mine bloom every other month. I'm not an expert but I try to get them to bloom often. When they bloom the flowers can last several weeks as well, making them very desirable.

I sometimes rotate mine from my growing area, to my dining table when they bloom, where the lightning is less perfect for them. The right amount of light is crucial to AVs to help them bloom, but I like showing them off and having them in the rest of the house is nice. This way they bloom in my growing area, and then in the rest of my house the blooms fade while I show them off.

About separating them, I'm not sure if you mean offshoot crowns, or multiple plants growing from a leaf. For offshoot crowns, I actually only have one that does that, which I received as a gift very recently, just a few months ago. I decided to take the offshoot and try and plant it as its own plant, so I'll see how that goes.

For multiple plants coming off a leaf you've planted, yes I separate them, once they are sizeable and easy to handle. To me an African violet should have a single crown, otherwise it looks messy.

I also have cut old 'stalky' plants shorter and replanted them with success. I have two plants I did this to just a week or two ago, which are recovering nicely.

For watering, you can easily add your fertilizer to the water you soak your plants in. I would recommend occasionally, maybe 1 in 5 waterings, to use plain unfertilized water. This will help eliminate too much build up of fertilizer. The issue you may have is you're soaking the plant in a large amount of water, you should mix your fertilizer into the water based on that volume. Meaning you'll use/waste more fertilizer faster.

But ultimately for me, a smaller dosage than the recommended amount of fertilizer is more effective for me. I also water from the top with fertilizer mixed in, and occasionally just use plain water.

Edit: also everything I learned about African violets, I learned from this book by Tony Clements.

Going from the book understanding orchids (which is pretty great), it looks like we can sterilize glass jars (boiling in a pressure cooker sounds like enough), then fill them with germination medium.

Although it sounds like you can ship off your seeds to flanking services that will do it for you!

I really like Putting Food By for preservation guidance.

If you are looking for less how to, Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal Vegetable Miracle is a wonderful read.

This isn't so much of a homesteading book, but Sara Stein's Noah's Garden is one of my favorites. It's about rethinking the way we garden so that we are doing it in harmony with ecology and nature.

I've been a fan of Ben Falk for a long time and he put out his first book not that long ago, The Resilient Farm and Homestead which is awesome particulary if you live in a colder climate. I have a feeling he will be putting out a new edition though soon given how he wrote the first one so you might want to wait on a purchase of that one.

Again, if you are a cold climate person, almost anything by Elliot Coleman is really great. He does a lot of extending the season kind of stuff that is good for shorter season growers.

Edible Landscaping is more for people with yards (as opposed to acreage I guess....) but I think the book is brilliant and well written and very inspirational with lots of resources.

http://www.amazon.com/Wildflowers-Ohio-Second-Edition-Robert/dp/0253219515

Do you know about this book? Not being snarky here; it just seems that you are interested enough in your local plants that it might be a good thing to buy.

https://www.amazon.com/Perennials-Time-Life-Complete-Gardener/dp/0783541007


Time life has a great series. Honestly they Are so cheap you can't go wrong. Selection guide, a little botany, planting guides, trouble shooting, gorgeous inspirational photos, "encyclopedia" section. Geoff hamiltons the organic garden book has been a favorite of mine for years. Covers soil, pests, weeds, garden plans. It covers flowers but not a whole lot on herbs. Also the complete book of herbs by Lesley bremness. Finally there's a series by ortho called "all about...". I have the perennials one. There's also an herb one, one on annuals, one on vines, one on bulbs, etc. These are prob all "dirt cheap" on amazon. Good places to start your gardening library. It's nice to have different ones for different ideas and photos, but I think you'll like these and so does my engineer hubby! Enjoy!

Northeast

Midwest

Very similar to Sunset is the Southern Living garden Book

You can find tree suggestions here:https://www.arborday.org/trees/.

There are drought resistant suggestions for plantings here:https://www.amazon.com/Sunset-Western-Garden-Easy-Care-Plantings/dp/0376030127/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1505461529&sr=8-5&keywords=western+garden+book

You may be able to get a copy at your local library or buy one used on Amazon.

Not sure what it is, but I like this book for IDing plants in winter. Can be had for real cheap used (and who needs new books to take into the field anyway?).

Sorry, wrong series

Extension note on your bushes

Hey thank you for the resources! plants.jstor.org looks to be closer to what I'm looking for, specifically the ability to search by region. Kew looks great as well, but when I search for a broad term like desert, I only get 25 results. I'd love to find something more in depth in the sense of "Plants of the Savanna" or something.

Here's an example of the kind of book I've been looking at, but I could do with less in depth info and variation, and more "international" or "regional" if that makes sense. Best is to have a small image like this book with the real world plant, the scientific name, and location. I'm a total layman when it comes to horticulture. I work as a 3D environment artist, so I'm just trying to collect useful resources to reference when approaching foliage creation :)

https://www.amazon.com/American-Horticultural-Society-Encyclopedia-Practical/dp/0789489937

Nice useless links. First link mentions nothing about returning grass clippings, so you've missed the point entirely. Publications from Minnesota and Penn State both clearly state you can return grass clippings without increasing thatch production. Read through Turgeon's or Christians' books and you'll notice neither of them recommend adding kitty litter to a sodded area. I don't know why I waste my time with you. I guess I enjoy the extreme level of bullshit that you present as scientific.