Fans pick 98 books like The Plant Propagator's Bible

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

I remember my first ever houseplant—doesn’t everyone? It was a spider plant, just a small one grown as an offset from my mother’s vast ‘mother’ plant. Yes—two mothers! The plant and my green-fingered mother got me hooked on houseplants. As a social historian, I’ve written about all things to do with the home—clothes, gardens, even gardeners themselves but houseplants? Why was there no social history of plants in the home? Where did that spider plant come from? And when? The answer is Japan in the late 18th century. But the truth is that plants have been brought into homes for centuries and their stories are fascinating. 

I have spent 25 years working at the New York Botanical Garden! My life’s pursuit of the green has been my greatest achievement. I'm a self-made terrarium designer. I developed my style and skills at NYBG and knew that I had to share this with the world. My books have sold over 14,000 copies worldwide. This is amazing to me and has taught me that my though-ness and step-by-step lessons were worth every word! Horticulture is a subject that comes naturally to me. I happily know the names of dozens and dozens of trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, tropical, desert, you name plants from all over the world and I’m learning new ones every season. 

I first read Swann’s Way when I was seventeen. Throughout the following five decades, In Search of Lost Time has always remained within reach, a parallel universe more enriching than words can express. As a painter, I’m drawn to Proust’s subtle use of paintings to reveal and mystify the relationship between what we see and what we know. I’ve spoken on Proust at Berkeley, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Houston, and was invited to give the annual Proust lecture at the Center for Fiction in New York as well as the Amon Carter Lecture on the Arts at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin.

I read my first novel when I was seven and wrote my first full story when I was eight. I’ve never stopped putting words to paper. Along with a passion for reading and writing, I’ve always been an all or nothing kind of person. When I want to know something, I dig and research until I know everything I can, which is exactly what I did when my eyes were opened to the spiritual warfare going on all around us. I’ve lost count of how many dozens of times I’ve read the Bible. I’ve since devoted myself to marrying my passions to develop suspense-filled stories with intense looks into the spiritual realm.  

As a historian with expertise in the early church, Middle Ages, and Reformation, I am obsessed with finding the writings and stories of women of the past. Whenever we discover works written by an unknown or forgotten woman in an archive or historical record, my co-author Marion Taylor and I excitedly email one another: “We rescued another woman!” I study the history of biblical interpretation and the history of women in religion. In most of my books, these two interests intersect—as I write about men throughout history who viewed stories of biblical women through patriarchal lenses and how women themselves have been biblical interpreters, often challenging men’s prevailing views. 

As a historian with expertise in the early church, Middle Ages, and Reformation, I am obsessed with finding the writings and stories of women of the past. Whenever we discover works written by an unknown or forgotten woman in an archive or historical record, my co-author Marion Taylor and I excitedly email one another: “We rescued another woman!” I study the history of biblical interpretation and the history of women in religion. In most of my books, these two interests intersect—as I write about men throughout history who viewed stories of biblical women through patriarchal lenses and how women themselves have been biblical interpreters, often challenging men’s prevailing views.