Gardening Month by Month in Alberta

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Gardeners’ journals are a cross between calendars and reference works.
Gardening Month by Month in Alberta has the look and feel of a standard
Lone Pine Publishing field guide, but as a “field guide” to
gardening, it falls short.

As a journal, the book is minimally better than a high-end wall
calendar. The spaces in which one would make notes are no larger than
those on most wall calendars. (In contrast, though, Jan Maher’s
Prairie Garden Planner offers several annual columns for each week.)
However, because the book is not specific to any year, it does have a
longer lifespan than a wall calendar. The week-by-week to-do lists are
useful, but not as extensive as they might be. The text frequently
strays from the “when to…” into the “how to…” of such
activities as container gardening and pest control, topics well covered
by standard gardening sources.

Overall, Gardening Month by Month in Alberta seems to be largely a
vehicle for the publication of pretty garden pictures. The photographs
are, indeed, all beautiful. Each week has three to five photographs, one
of which is a large flower overlaying the lower part of the calendar
page. While many of the photographs do illustrate the text or at least
relate to the season, others are incongruously placed. For example, in
February, there is an image of a crabapple tree in full bloom, which
won’t happen in Edmonton until May. The last week of November has
pictures of irises and lilies, suitable for bog gardens, which are
likely to be frozen solid and under several feet of snow at that time.

As a month-by-month guide to gardening, the book may have a place in
Alberta’s public libraries. Because of its visual appeal, it will
probably do well in the gift market.