Vintage Gardening Books You Need on Your Shelves

To buy: $24, amazon.com, indiebound.org

In A Southern Garden, first published in 1942, noted Southern garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence celebrates the year-round possibilities of gardening in the South.

To buy: $17.95, amazon.com, indiebound.org

This book is a collection of essays by writer and editor Katharine S. White. Each of the essays was first published in The New Yorker in 1958, and they were collected and edited after her death by her husband, writer E. B. White, who also provides the introduction to the book.

To buy: $14, amazon.com, indiebound.org

The American Gardener: A Treatise on the Situation, Soil, and Laying Out of Gardens is one of the earliest American gardening books and was first published in the 19th century. While it has been out of print since 1856, it is available now through the Modern Library Gardening series.

To buy: $21, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Gardener Eleanor Perényi’s Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden was first published in 1981 and contains 72 essays on plants, gardens, and gardening history. The New Yorker called it “one of those dangerous reference works that you reach for at a moment of horticultural crisis or indecision only to find yourself an hour later browsing far beyond the page where you began.”

To buy: $15.95, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Amateur gardener Beverley Nichols published his much-loved gardening book, Down the Garden Path, in 1932. It's a wonderful read and one in which Nichols’ fresh perspective proves perennial. He writes, "The best gardening books should be written by those who still have to search their brains for the honeysuckle's languid Latin name.” (It’s Lonicera, if you were wondering.)

To buy: $8.48, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Celebrated gardening writer Christopher Lloyd offers his perspectives in The Well-Tempered Garden: Wisdom and Advice from a Legendary Gardener, a now-classic treatise that addresses both the basics and the complexities of the gardening life.

To buy: $19.95, amazon.com, indiebound.org

In The Education of a Gardener, which was first published in 1962, landscape designer Russell Page recounts his gardening education as well as his work on some impressively sprawling tracts later in his career.

To buy: $17, amazon.com, indiebound.org

The Gardener’s Bed-Book was first published in 1929, and it remains a much-loved text of bedtime stories perfect for gardeners. It’s filled with 365 essays to be read before bed to ensure dreams of gardens and gardening will follow.

To buy: $7.88, amazon.com, indiebound.org

The musings of writer and amateur gardener Beverley Nichols (1898–1983) are collected in Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols, which gathers excerpts from his celebrated work. The book is at turns funny and frank, and it explores Nichols' favorite plants and varied gardening pursuits.

To buy: $16, amazon.com, indiebound.org

Czech writer Karel Čapek first published The Gardener’s Year in Prague in 1929. It is a terrifically funny book about his adventures (and misadventures) in the garden alongside his brother, Josef, who also illustrates the text.