The New Shade Garden

April 20, 2015
The 400 pictures, starting with bedewed sensitive ferns gracing the cover and helleborus and brunnera inside, give plenty of reasons to include Druse’s latest work in all gardeners’ libraries. But Druse’s words, offered in the tone of a neighbor happy to advise, make this book worth more than mere coffee-table topping. Having written The Natural Shade Garden two decades ago, Druse (Making More Plants) now extends those ideas to encourage gardeners to deal with the changing climate by attending to the low-stress benefits of life in the shade, including less demand for water and the advantage of lower temperatures. “Shade is looking good to 21st-century gardeners,” he writes. Druse addresses topics such as sustainability after he offers common sense on degrees of shade (light to medium shade, filtered light etc.), plants with a purpose, paths into the woods, water gardens, and gardeners’ ethics. He divulges secrets from experience; for example, his toilet tank helped rehydrate seeds. Even in cutlines, his delight in gardening percolates: for example, he notes attentively that prairie dropseed smells like popcorn. Druse sells shade masterfully.