Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest

by Arthur R. Kruckeberg

"Few parts of America have as many native plants that excel in the garden as the Pacific Northwest. But until this year, there wasn't a comprehensive book on the subject. Now there is: "Gardening With Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest."..The main body of the book is divided into encyclopedic sections on trees, shrubs, and herbaceous perennials, including information about where they grow in the wild, how to propagate them, and how they fit into home gardens...This book contains so much well-organized, well-written material that it should become a standard guidebook for anyuone who gardens with Northwest natives." "-Sunset"

"All in all, this is a fascinating book, full of reliable information." -"The Garden Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society"

"Professor Kruckeberg is a botanist at the University of Washington who has specialized in the flora of the Pacific Northwest for over thirty years. This summary of his experience, with plants in the wild and in gardens, will be referred to with pleasure for years, not only for the value of its information but also for the easy style and quiet humor of its presentation." -"Pacific Horticulture"

"Arthur Kruckenberg has provided his attractive, literate, and useful book just as the native-plant movement is gathering great momentum. As he writes, 'The largely untapped potential of gardening with Northwest natives needs to become a way of life for those who look to the plant for beauty and serenity.' That goes for anywhere." "-Horticulture"

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Reference, Plants, Science, Nature, Horticulture

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible reference! This isn’t a book to read straight through, nor is it a gardening manual. But it is the most incredible compendium of Pacific Northwest natives and their garden requirements. Valuable for any PNW gardener.

[Debbie Teashon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the first books on native plants that I bought back in the 80s after returning from Hawaii. Kruckeberg's book inspired my renewed appreciation of native plants in the Northwest. Although some newer books dive deeper into the subject, I hear a new edition is in the works with updates and new plants. That too will become a fixture on my book shelf.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is the motive for writing a book like this one? To be sure, I am no great shakes as a gardener, but for a variety of reasons I am fascinated by the proper placement of plants in the right place for the right purposes, and a book like this is clearly written with a variety of purposes that are not always obvious and upfront. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It is quite possible that a book like this one would get a lot less attention of the author was open and honest about his various and complex goals in seeking to encourage the cultivation of native plants of the Pacific Northwest as opposed to non-native and sometimes highly invasive plants. The author, it must be admitted, has several purposes in play in this book, and they are complex purposes that are sometimes at cross-purposes with each other. On the one hand, the author is seeking to encourage readers--and this is a diverse group of readers, some of whom are gardeners with a small home plot and some of whom are people responsible for large and substantial public spaces--to utilize native plants for purposes of beauty as well as land reclamation, but on the other hand the author frequently is seeking to prevent the destruction of sensitive native plants like orchids, a nuanced approach to be sure.

This book is a relatively average-sized book at around 250 pages or so of 8 1/2" x 11" pages written and frequently illustrated (in black and white) about the native plants of the Pacific Northwest and their uses in gardening. The book begins with two prefaces as well as acknowledgements and then an introduction (1) that includes the natural environments of the Pacific Northwest, some garden and landscape uses of native plants, and the propagation of native plants. This is followed by a discussion of native trees (2), including conifers, evergreens, and deciduous trees. After this comes a chapter on some native ornamental shrubs (3), including evergreens and ground covers as well as deciduous shrubs. A longer chapter then covers some native ornamental herbaceous perennials (4), including ferns, ground orchids, lilies and irises, and herbs organized by size. After this comes a chapter on grasses and grasslike plants (5), including woodland and wetland settings, meadow grasses, seashore grasses, alpine and rock garden grasses, and grasses for the drylands east of the Cascades. This is followed by a closing chapter that includes supplemental annuals, herbaceous perennials, trees, and shrubs that were neglected in the first edition (6), as well as appendices that discuss collecting in the wild (i), lists of native plants for particular settings (ii), sources of information on native plants (iii), and native grasses and their kin (iv), as well as a glossary of terms, derivations and meanings of genus and species names, a selected bibliography, and an index.

In reading this book, one has to wonder about the layers of what the author is trying to say. For one, as is often the case in writing about native plants, there is a rather broad definition of what it means for a plant to be native. The plants considered to be native here include the entire range of the Pacific Northwest, focused on Oregon and Washington to be sure, but moving well into Canada and even in to Northern California, as those areas are also a part of the larger Pacific Northwest and share similarities with the core areas of the region. Of particular interest as well is the fact that this book was written as a second edition and the author realized that there were areas of the plants of the region that were somewhat neglected in the first edition, and so instead of adding the additions in the chapters where they would most fit, the author simply tacked them on at the end, which somewhat disrupts the flow of the book as a whole. This somewhat hurts the organization of the book, but it certainly made it easier to write, I imagine.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a "must-have" for anyone interested in PNW native plants. (As is Pojar & McKinnon's book, which is more like an encyclopedia with colored photos). The author knows his stuff -- the only frustration is that he sometimes sings the praises of plants that are extremely difficult to find in the nursery trade (except maybe at his wife's own nursery.)

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous reference book for Pacific Northwest native plants. I loooooved all the color pictures and how well laid out the book is. This was a highly enjoyable and informative read. I borrowed it from my library but I'm thinking of purchasing a copy for my own shelf to refer back to.

[Derek Donahue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was transformative in my knowledge of how to garden and get plans to grow. I also recommend that people get a Hoopla membership from their public library and then check out the Great Courses Plus "The Science of Gardening" which is taught by Linda Chalker-Scott (coauthor).

[MELODY ON · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took so many notes on all the wonderful native plants we have in BC, especially the ones that are edible, medicinal, attractive for landscaping, and support our wildlife and natural ecosystem.

[Jackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was probably fine and in 1982. In 2021, the black and white photos and poor formatting just aren't worth bothering with.

[Susan]

So happy I bought this for myself last year! It's been such a great resource.

[Elizabeth Scott Tervo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very pretty book!

[SJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good but DENSE! I wish the indexing was a bit more intuitive but honestly that’s me being crabby. It’s a very good resource, will be coming back to it often

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

first gardening book I feel compelled to buy