Staking Out the Home Landscape

Staking Out the Home Landscape, Paul E. Stake, Touchstone Farms, 2002

This book consists of a series of newspaper columns on gardening, published between 1995-2002 in the Willimantic, Connecticut "Chronicle". Stake was a professor in the University of Connecticut College of Agriculture and Natural Resources for more than 25 years, until failing health forced his early retirement.

A surprisingly large number of topics in the areas of gardening and landscape management are covered in this book. Gardening is not something that happens just during warm weather. The author looks at making plants go dormant over the winter, to storing seeds from one year to the next, to the care and feeding of christmas trees.

Subject areas in this book include flowers and vegetables, gardening mulch and fertilizers, weeds, herbs and wildflowers, trees and shrubs, lawn care, food safety, and enjoying birds. Some of the individual columns explore carpenter bees, earthworms, potting soil, russian sage, spaghetti squash, how to control aphids, herbs like goldenrod and purslane, chamomile, maple sugaring, pussy willows, apple disease and pest management, controlling moles in the lawn, selecting firewood, thanksgiving food safety and winter shelter for horses, among many others.

This is a fine example of, for lack of a better term, one stop shopping concerning trees, flowers and gardens. It's good for those who care about the scientific name of a plant, and those who just want to know when and where to plant. In one respect, this book is meant to be used in Connecticut, but, in another respect, it can be used anyplace. Both novice and experienced gardeners should read this book.