My *Own* Holiday Gift List (...if you like plants)

On Monday, I included a link to a gift guide for garden lovers.  I thought that I may as well share a few of my favorite books from 2010.  These aren't necessarily books that were published in 2010, it's simply that I discovered them then.

When I was traveling to Arizona, I was overwhelmed by the number of plants I encountered and at a loss to where to begin identifying them.  At the Montezuma Castle gift shop, I found these wonderful gems: Flowers of the Southwest Deserts and Shrubs & Trees of the Southwest Deserts.

The books are very easy to read and simple in content.  At the same time, the images (line drawings) are very clear.  I wish I had them on the first day of my trip, instead of my last.

Another book, which I picked up at the Grand Canyon, was
 Naturalist's Guide to Canyon Country.  This was a fun addition, since although the plant information was a bit simple, it also included information on wildlife, as the cover implies.

Before Arizona, I was lucky to spend quite a bit of time in Hawaii.  Hawaii's Plants and Animals: Biological Sketches of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is a wonderful read.  Very comprehensive, dividing the book into sections based on ecosystems, which makes perfect sense for a place with such a rich variety of landscapes.  Again, the images in this book were all line drawings, which is always my preference for plant books.

Finally, those of you who read NYPAOS know that I launched my own business this year.  A surprisingly dense and easy to read book that serves as a guide for setting up a business was Freelance Design in Practice.  The book is more geared to graphic designers, but it's easy enough to translate those services to those a landscape architect offers.  It also deals frankly with conflict that most designers (who can obsess for hours, even days, on getting a design "perfect") struggle with: avoiding becoming submerged in their designs at the sake of their business or personal life.