Almost as much as I love to garden I love to read. While Mom's gardens where great to grow up around it was dreaming over garden magazines and then books that led to my garden obsession. Back then the majority of the books seemed to be English, Northeast US or the Washington State coastel area. At last, this last decade has seen an increase in good southern garden writers. Now, there where some great southern writers from the very beginning and I will include those.  These are all books that I have read. I encourage you to contact me with any recommendations you have. I will only accept non-southern books under "entertaining" section, all others must be written with the southern gardener in mind and even better with the Louisiana gardener in mind. My recommendations are in order of where they happen to be on my shelves, asking me about my favorite would be like asking which child or rose I like best. I just can't do it. 

Caroline Dorman: This is a brief bio of this renowned Louisiana Gardener,Artist and Author and a review of her books. She gets her own section because she was a cousin of Mom's.

My Worn Out Books: As the title says these are the books that are so well read and used I've worn them out, a few I even replaced they are that good. This includes non- southern books that I started out with and loved the skill, entertainment or beauty of the books so much they had me dreaming of how my garden would be.

 Useful Garden Books: These are the nuts and bolts of how to garden. I also include books about specific plants I've read here and found to be true.

 Entertaining Books:  These are usually books that have very few pictures. The author is entertaining us with stories of their garden efforts. They often do recommend plants-so pay attention where they live and garden before taking their advice on what to plant or any time tables.

  Inspirational Garden Books:  These are the "Pretty" books. I also include here the books that have inspired me in my interest in Gaia-Mother Earth and books about using gardens as healers.

  Rose Books:  I have so many of these I just had to give then their own page. I love roses and rose books. These are my favorites.