Sunset Western Garden Book. - book reviews

A lot has changed in gardening in the last 10 years, with the introduction of new plants, new techniques, new tools, and new garden products. The revised and enlarged fifth edition of the Sunset Western Garden Book (Lane Publishing Co., Menlo Park, Calif., 1988; $22.95 hardcover, $14.95 paperback until December 31 -then $16.95) will be available this month in garden and home improvement centers and at bookstores. It reflects these changes and shows how Western gardening has evolved since 1979, when the fourth edition was published. The new book is an opportunity to see how Westerners have changed as gardeners and gives a hint of what developments will influence gardening in the decade to come.

Right away, you'll notice that this Sunset Western Garden Book is 80 pages longer and includes much more color photography. In the front of the book is a completely new 25-page section called "The Spirit of Western Gardening." It captures the beauty of Western plants and gardens in glorious color-and, of course, it's also full of good, useful ideas.

Changes in graphics make this edition of the book more accurate and easier to use. Climate maps have been updated in some regions to reflect urban and suburban growth; all drawings on the basics of plant care have been redone, with an emphasis on clarity; and color illustrations have been added to the chapter on pest control to make it easier for you to

identify garden troublemakers.

But no matter how different the fifth edition looks, it's the information-ftom how to plant to what to plant-that is the heart of the book. Some of that has changed, too-and not necessarily in subtle ways. On the next four pages, we'll look at some of the important changes and additions to the text of the latest Sunset Western Garden Book. They could alter the way you garden, starting this month.

Pest Control

New attitudes, controls, products Attitudes about how we should control garden pests continue to change. Many Westerners now view chemical sprays as only a last resort, preferring to use cultural methods, biological controls, or less toxic materials first, In addition, nursery shelves offer different choices for us to use when trying to combat insects, weeds, and plant diseases. Many old products have been replaced by newer, safer, and more effective ones.

If you compare the basic arsenal of insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides in the last edition of the Sunset Western Garden Book with that presented in the new one, you'll see that 20 products are gone and 8 new ones have been added. You'll also notice greater emphasis on less toxic materials such as insecticidal soaps and oil sprays.

Is there anything new here that might affect what you do in your garden this month? Yes. The last version of the book included no mention of using products containing fixed copper to control peach leaf curl. In many areas of the West, late November is the time to begin spraying to control this disease. The latest University of California research, reported in the new garden book, indicates that fixed copper in a wettable powder form is just as effective as the old standby, lime sulfur-and it's less caustic to eyes and hands.

Planting for Permanence

Latest thinking on basic planting If you're planning any new landscaping this month, you should take a close look at the illustrations below, excerpted from the planting sections of the new book. They differ in two small but very significant ways from comparable drawings in the last edition.

First, unless you garden in very sandy soil, the hole should be dug just deep enough so that when a container plant is set in it, its soil's surface is slightly higher than the level of the surrounding soil.

No longer is it considered advisable to dig the hole several inches deeper than the depth of the rootball and backfill it to soil level; university research has shown this to cause many plants to settle too deeply after watering.

More important, the latest research, reported in Sunset just this past year, shows that, except in very sandy or clay soil, the fastest way to get a new plant's roots established in native soil is not to add organic matter to the backfill. This is a major deviation ftom past recommendations, which have always encouraged gardeners to amend backfilled soil with 25 to 50 percent organic matter.

Spirit of Western Gardening

'Today's approach is "anything's possible" Western gardens are becoming famous for their vitality, variety, and distinctiveness. Increasingly, they reflect special opportunities presented by specific climates and topography-from galleries of drought-resistant natives in California or Arizona to woodsy stands of rhododendron in misty western Washington.

An exuberant "anything's possible" approach leads to innovative gardening: mixing and matching such unlikely companions as peppers with annuals in pots, allowing vines to scramble along the ground between boulders, growing mixed annuals vertically-tapestry-style-on a fence, or designing interestingly informal gardens like the one pictured at left. You'll see these and other fresh ideas in the color photographs in the new "Spirit of Western Gardening" section.