“Kiss My Aster: A Graphic Guide to Creating a Fantastic Yard Totally Tailored to You”
By Amanda Thomsen; Storey Publishing, 159 pages
I hope that readers of this column will forgive my reading obsessions. If you’re a regular “Check It Out” follower, you know my predilection for felines, cookbooks, and Mother Nature. While I champion a wide variety of reading material, I can’t help but share some of my passions with you, dear reader. Having said that, I present to you another delightful book about gardening.
Amanda Thomsen, a master gardener and landscape designer, has written a fun, smart guide about do-it-yourself landscaping. While there are many, many excellent books out there about gardening and yard design, I haven’t come across one quite as inviting and engaging as “Kiss My Aster” (nor as memorable a title). In the introduction, Thomsen describes the book’s style as resembling the Choose Your Own Adventures series she enjoyed as a child. Instead of “deciding whether to enter the haunted cave or to use that time machine,” she explains that her book allows the reader to decide such things as “whether you should plant that tree or hire someone to do it for you,” or “do you have what it takes to grow your own vegetables — or should you just stick with the farmers’ market?”
Unlike other how-to gardening titles, this one gives the reader permission to say, “Hey, I would love to have my own vegetable patch, but let’s face it, veggies taste just as good from someone else’s garden.” Not having to feel badly about having a brown thumb? Priceless.
