We rarely write about books on Rant – well, I have been barely writing at all – but it doesn’t mean we don’t love books on gardening and want them to flourish. These days, most beginning gardeners are bypassing books altogether, instead relying on YouTube tutorials and other digital means.

That’s not how I learned. Like many of you, I got help from more experienced gardeners, but I also read books. Those early lessons from authors like Tracey DiSabato-Aust, Barbara Damrosch, Allan Armitage, and others gave me a pretty decent foundation. There were also all those “50  best for shade” and plant-specific manuals to use for reference. And then there were the garden writers – Christopher Lloyd and Anna Pavord among others – who were fun to read, regardless of whether or not their specific information was relevant to my climate. 

Speaking of Allan Armitage, I hope he won’t be hurt that I’m calling his latest book cute. Sorry, Dr. A, but it is. It also, in an interesting way, seems targeted for beginning gardeners who get most of their information online. Importantly, it’s short, with each chapter attacking very specific, elemental  gardening issues. 

In the preface to The Common Sense Gardener, Armitage says he finally wrote a straight “how-to” book because he was struck by what the overall gardening discourse seemed to lack: common sense. I could get into a whole thing here about how common sense would be defined, but I get what Armitage means. Too many gardeners overthink the whole enterprise. 

In the book, Armitage makes use of a fictional beginning gardener named “Evan,” who journeys to a specific garden in each chapter, getting lessons along the way from a series of experienced  gardeners. These are also fictional, though one, “John,” is obviously Armitage. 

Evan describes many of his fellow beginning gardeners like this: “They were confused about basic things like sun and shade, unclear about terms like “invasive” and “aggressive,” puzzled about compost and mulch, and continually in doubt about when to prune a plant. What seemed like a pleasant way to spend an afternoon outside had become an exercise in indecision.”

These are exactly the kind of questions asked on our local Facebook gardening group, but the answers range wildly. Wrong? Right? Who knows? Sometimes it’s better to put down the phones and read a book like Armitage’s.

I’d especially like my gardening friends who simply assume everything must be cut back regularly to read this sentence in the chapter where Evan explores pruning: “Plants do not need to be cut back, shaped or pruned. It does not make the plants any more or less healthy.” The chapter that includes this sentence does share plenty of solid, basic advice on pruning and when to do it, but I love the “don’t make this into a thing” attitude. I can verify that most people around my neck of the woods prune way, way too much. Their poor, never-blooming hydrangeas can attest to that. 

Other chapters take on fertilizing, deer and squirrel control, soil maintenance, foodscaping, cut-flower gardening and basic design. I liked the design chapter, which describes how to create individual garden spaces without using the phrase “garden rooms.”

Finally, in the chapter on natives, gardener “John” tells you all you need to know about where Armitage stands on this when he starts out with: “Some of my best friends are native plant enthusiasts.” 

The book is well illustrated with images that look like they came from real gardens – none of the lush impossibility I often see in upscale garden books, as much as I enjoy them.

I would give this 120-page book to friends who are just starting their gardens in the hopes they might find time to read it. And as someone who’s been maintaining a garden for more than 25 years, I gleaned some very useful tips. I know I got more out of it than I would get watching 2 hours of annoying YouTube chatterboxes (not that I ever would watch 2 hours of YouTube tutorials if there was an opportunity to eat glass instead).

The book can be found on Armitage’s website, which headlines a Feb. 1 release – there might be opportunities to buy it before that.

It’s been fun finally writing a post.