I still keep a stack of gardening books on my bedside table. Love flipping through every now and then before going to sleep!

I have to admit I have passed along most of my books on gardening, pertaining to garden design, basic stuff etc. Have a few dvd's on gardening and gardens, mostly from the UK. Have the Victorian Kitchen, Flower and Kitchen series, I can watch these over and over again. I still have quite a few books on fuchsias mostly used for fuchsia identification now, they used to be scanned for varieties to put on my want list :), both Paul Picton's books on Asters one of my favorite perennials and still have a few books on specific things. I love reading about how things were done in Victorian times, and books on heirloom flowers and vegetables, also books by noted gardeners on how they made their gardens.
Annette

I'm a book person, too. I won't part with them, and I have two bookcases full of just horticulture books. (Another one for cookbooks, another for birding and travel..lol) You see a photo on the web, and you likely will never find it again when you need to refer to it again for a project. Need to review a photo in a book, and there it is waiting for you like an old friend. And with library bookstores selling lovely hardback books for only a buck or two, my library isn't getting smaller.

"...you could boil the book and get the nutritional equivalent of a meal."

lol Reminds me of an (original) Dear Abby, where the mother returns from an out of town trip, and the children said the person taking care of them in her stead had made their favorite meals. Come to find out, she had used the messiest cookbook pages to choose which recipes were their favorites.

The internet has its plusses. More recently introduced pests and diseases, for example, have more up to date information over books. I usually just ask my husband, who is licensed and has to keep current on all of those details. But the internet is a good backup when he isn't around. For that, at least. ;)

I heard on an NPR program not too long ago that research is being done regarding reading on electronic devices vs traditional forms (books, periodicals, etc). IIRC it was said in this program that more information is absorbed and retained when read from non-electronic sources, has to do with the tendency to "skim" material, to read very quickly but not really have it register in the mind, and need to scan top to bottom when using electronic devices; when using a book, people tend to slow down and actually read the material and thus absorb it more fully. Does anyone have a link to any studies on this in peer-reviewed journals? I can look up in when I have time (which probably won't be anytime soon...). Anecdotally, I find this true.

mxk3 interesting!

Holding something (a book, a baby, a photograph album) establishes a physical connection, sensory memory- not just an occular memory ( is there a better word for memory from seeing?) I remember being in an old creaky house on cape cod, reading Hound of the Baskervilles. I can remember the smell, the sound of the water. I was scared out of my wits. If I'd read it on a computer in the same environment would it have been experienced the same way? I don't know; wondering.

Also, I've become more discriminating about the books I buy and more critical of the garden books I read. If a gardening book is personal, i.e. by Sydney Eddison or Capek or Henry Mitchell, Christopher Llyod I make allowances for some gossip and personal idiosyncrasies . I bought Armitage's "encyclopedia" of perennials. Can't quite put my finger on it- too many pictures, exclamation points, the picture of the deer wasted hostas- I felt like he was cheating me of information. Books are expensive!! I want my money's worth. I don't feel like that about "free" information the web. So, does paying money for something change the investment one will make in the exercise of reading?

Mxk3, oh yes, i know exactly what you mean! I , too, fondly remember the thrill of pouring over those books and even catalogs. I remember how I always looked forward to getting that gorgeous White Flower Farms catalog in the mail! It was just like a gardening coffee table book. I suppose the online catalog has somewhat the same material now, but it's not nearly as exciting to scroll through as holding in my hands that catalog and leisurely pouring over every word and photo.

These days i depend on the internet for almost all the gardening info I seek, but years ago when i first got the urge to try gardening I joined a garden book club and obtained invaluable stores of advice, inspiration and knowledge of garden principles and design from the books I received as a member. That was back in the '90s and I have long since quit the book club. But I would never part with all those wonderful books. To this day, I still value them - particularly, The Garden in Autumn by Allen Lacy, and The Undaunted Garden by Laura Springer.

Great post! Thanks for posting it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the good comments.

Years ago people got their news from the newspapers, then from the radio, then from television, now through the internet. The times they are a changing.

Most of the information about gardening I get from the internet. Many times I look for detailed information about germinating seeds of plants that are not easy to find in books (unless you got access to Dirr's book!) Also valuable are stories from gardeners about experiences with specific plants.

I agree that books have a special feel. These days I mainly read garden books in bed before I go to sleep. Personal favorites are the books from Christopher Lloyd, the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs and various seed catalogues.

I grew up reading and re-reading an uncle's copy of 'Crockett's Victory Garden'. At some point I guess I appeared so obsessed he just gave it to me!

Lots of great authors and books and even catalogues mentioned here. I love forums and blogs and online reading but it's really a good book that I want to sit down with. Maybe the feel does have something to do with it.

I'm a big fan of Timber Press. Here's the motto off their website: "Our mission is to share the wonders of the natural world by publishing books from experts in the fields of gardening, horticulture, and natural history". How can you go wrong with a place like that?

I wouldn't be without my horticultural library! And it keeps getting bigger, although much more slowly now than it did in years past. When I downsized a number of years ago, I got rid of lots of extraneous belongings that were not needed or seldom used, including many books (even most cookbooks - you can find any recipe you could ever want online!). But not my gardening books........they'll follow me into the old folks home :-)

They are old friends. Many are bedraggled and falling apart from constant use - one copy of Dirr, my A-Z encyclopedia, my hort dictionary - but many are cared for tenderly with stickies noting important places, paragraphs or photos. I use them for reference, I use them for inspiration and I use them to illustrate to clients various plant selections or planting combinations. Tablets and online images are fine but nothing can replace a well considered published photograph of a mature plant growing in context. Which are darn hard to find online.

I have a complete set of Heronswood catalogs from when the nursery first opened until they stopped publishing after Burpee's takeover. These are a wonderful reference as well as being some very entertaining reading. Dan Hinkley's humor and writing style cannot be beat. And I am fortunate to have collected a number of signed copies of publications from some great plantsmen which I think are priceless (although they probably have no value at all to anyone else) - Michale Dirr, Dan Hinkley, John Brooks, Ken Druse, Ann Lovejoy, Guy Sternberg.

Individual plants and even gardens may come and go over the years but my garden books are a constant. And very treasured.