Anticipation: The Best Part of Gardening?

“One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides,” according to W. E. Johns in his book The Passing Show: A Garden Diary.

To many gardeners, March can be one the most enjoyable months of the year. Gardening catalogs appear in the mailbox, seed displays and bags of potting soil are prominent at hardware stores, and the hint of buds can be seen on shrubs and trees. We look at our barren yards and envision lush green grass; we see our drab, messy garden beds and imagine an abundance of vegetables and herbs, or colorful flowers. Anything seems possible!

But to turn those dreams into reality, planning is required and now is the time to get started. To help our local gardeners achieve their botanical goals, the Hickory Public Library has a large collection of gardening books and audiovisual materials for gardeners of all ages and levels of expertise.

Are you a gardening novice? Take a look at these titles:

• Step-by-Step Garden Basics (635 Bal)
• Conran’s Basic Book of Home Gardening: a Complete Guide for the First-Time Gardener (635 Buc)
• Basic Gardening: A Handbook for Beginning Gardeners (635 Car)

For those with little space to devote to a garden, these books might be helpful:

• The Patio Kitchen Garden (635.9671 Led)

• Gardening in Small Spaces (635.9 Gar)
• Small Gardens (635.9 Dav)

If you need information on a specific aspect of gardening, the library has more specialized materials, such as:

• The Butterfly Garden: Creating Beautiful Gardens to Attract Butterflies

(635.9 Sed)

• Creating a Japanese Garden (712 Cha)
• Shade: Planting Solutions for Shady Gardens (635.9543 Wil)

And there are a number of gardening guides for those with physical disabilities:

• Accessible Gardening for People with Disabilities (635 Adi)
• Able to Garden: a Practical Guide for Disabled and ElderlyGardeners (635.087)

There also are a number of websites worth checking out. Both www.hgtv.com and www.bhg.com provide helpful gardening tips on a wide range of topics. The NC Cooperative Extension agency, one of the most reliable sources for gardening information, has a wonderful online newsletter at http://successfulgardener.org.

Even if you are not a gardener, it’s still worth taking home a few garden books just to get lost in the beautiful pictures of bright flowers, hummingbirds and butterflies, luscious fruits and vegetables. Garden books saved my sanity on many occasions during the six years I lived in the North Carolina mountains, where the winters lasted way too long. They were a reminder that winter would not last forever, although it often felt that way. The following quote by Barbara Winkler says it all: “Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle . . . a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream.”