Gardening Companions The Best Course For Reading All Those Books May Be To Sample A Bit From Each One

So much to read, so little time. April and another round of outdoor gardening are just around the corner.

Meantime, a bevy of gardening books wrestles for a dirt digger’s attention. To cope with the array, borrow a bit of bee behavior: Dip into one attraction, nose around and then zip to the next.

Given its encyclopedic nature, “The 400 Best Garden Plants” by Elvin McDonald (Random House, $40) is amenable to that approach. Sections on annuals, perennials, bulbs, and trees and shrubs each include a hit parade of McDonald’s favorite 100 choices. Novice gardeners especially might appreciate this book for its photographs and brief rundowns of growing requirements.

The color reproductions are rich and savory; turn to page 133 and gaze at the soft green pillows of wild ginger foliage. This time of year, such viewing seems almost sinful. Can calories be transmitted by simply staring at sumptuous plant pictures?

Next, stop for a spell in “The Dry Garden” by Mark Rumary (Sterling Publishing, $19.95) and think back to those hot and humid but rainless days last summer when everybody swore to wean the garden of plants addicted to moisture. This latest Wayside Gardens book suggests methods of designing and maintaining a garden that doesn’t need any - or much - gardener-provided water.

The authors of two new books will be familiar to readers of Horticulture magazine. “The Transplanted Gardener” by Charles Elliott (Lyon & Burford, $22.95) is a collection of essays, many of which first appeared in the magazine, about British gardens, gardeners and garden history. These range from a discussion of the ha-ha - a ditchlike construction that didn’t disrupt a visual expanse of lawn but still kept cattle confined - to a wonderful piece on coping with garden theft (“The Booby-Trapped Carrot”).

Elliott, who was born in Ypsilanti, Mich., and went to the University of Michigan, takes his American outlook and elegant prose to the land where gardening is truly a noble pursuit. Through Elliott’s filter, the reader sees how even obsessive/ compulsive behavior can be charming.

Meanwhile, Horticulture magazine Editor Thomas Cooper puts his yard and musings on display in “Odd Lots: Seasonal Notes of a City Gardener” (Henry Holt, $20). Cooper’s essays are organized to follow the monthly calendar. The writing is tidy, sometimes humorous and often lyrical. The observations are apt and refreshingly unpretentious, as when he describes getting down on the ground with his 2-year-old daughter to check out the spring’s first clump of yellow crocuses.

Too cold for that now. Need a reason to be happy that it’s winter? How about this: Many non-furry garden pests are either dead or sleeping.

Writing about pests in “The New Organic Gardener” (Chelsea Green Publishing Co., $24.95), Eliot Coleman urges a shift in outlook from what he calls pest-negative to plant-positive. For too long, Coleman writes, gardeners have had a knee-jerk reaction to pests: Nuke them. Instead of resorting to chemicals, Coleman urges gardeners to keep plants healthy so they stand up to whatever nature doles out. And he makes suggestions on how to do that.

This new edition (subtitled “A Master’s Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener”) is full of nuts-and-bolts discussion of particular interest to committed vegetable gardeners, including those who sell what they grow.

Armchair and/or goofball gardeners will love the manic photographic tour of Australia in “Quirky Gardens” by Jennifer Isaacs (Ten Speed Press, $24.95), where the outdoor appointments range from folk art to the fanciful and phantasmagoric. Check out the mosaic wall of porcelain dolls, cup handles and candle holders. Or the row of guess-whats in Teapot Alley. Or the gnome statues. What a pity these Australians are so restrained.

In the coffee-table category, “Malcolm Hillier’s Color Garden” (Dorling Kindersley, $29.95) brings cheer. Look at the scarlet Guernsey lilies cheek by jowl with blue-lavender perennial asters. Take heart. It won’t be that long before the buttercup yellow winter aconites plump boldly against their green ruffs.

Which makes me wonder: Why don’t the winter aconites pictured in the book look dog-eared, the way mine do every March?

Maybe the dwindling daylight is provoking the grumps. If so, “The Unsung Season: Gardens & Gardeners in Winter” by Sydney Eddison (Houghton Mifflin Co., $29.95) may be a tonic. Edison introduces the reader to a raft of gardeners who don’t take winter sitting down. They spill secrets about greenhouses and plants in spare bedrooms, about mouseproof bulb forcing, about flower shows. Eddison also suggests forming a special-interest club with likeminded gardeners - perhaps meeting only in the winter.

A good idea. Because as much as there is to be learned about plants from books during these days of winter confinement, there’s just as much or more to be learned from fellow gardeners.