Recommended Resources

A Garden for Life

By Diana Beresford-Kroeger

A north-temperate gardening philosophy from one of Canada's most respected ecologists. Pairs native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants for biodiversity and resilience — useful for Alberta gardeners thinking about a yard as an ecosystem.

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A Step-by-Step Guide to Houseplant Care

By David Squire & Neil Sutherland

Photographic walk-throughs of repotting, pruning, propagating, and diagnosing the most common houseplant problems. A good first reference if you've just brought your first plant home.

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Botanica

An A-to-Z encyclopedia covering more than 10,000 garden plants with photographs, hardiness ratings, and concise growing notes. Heavy as a brick — indispensable for cross-referencing plant choices.

Affiliate link coming soon — available from Raincoast Books · ISBN 1-55192-217-7

Botanica's Roses

Companion volume to Botanica, devoted entirely to roses — historic varieties through modern cultivars, with photographs and growing notes. Useful when narrowing down which roses will actually overwinter on the prairies.

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Botany for Gardeners: An Introduction and Guide

By Brian Capon

The bridge between 'plants are pretty' and understanding why a plant is doing what it's doing. Approachable plant biology for working gardeners — photosynthesis, roots, dormancy, propagation.

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Bulb

By Anna Pavord

An exhaustive, beautifully photographed reference covering 600 of the world's most rewarding bulbs, corms, and tubers — with planting depth, season, and growing notes for each. Skews to a milder climate than ours, but the cultivation principles transfer.

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The Container Gardening Encyclopedia

By Sue Phillips

Project-led reference for growing in pots — combinations, troubleshooting, and seasonal containers. Especially useful for balconies, patios, and zone-3 gardeners working around a short in-ground season.

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Edible & Medicinal Plants of Canada

Lone Pine's standard identification guide for foraged foods and traditional medicines across Canada. Each entry includes description, habitat, edible parts, and notes on both Indigenous and settler uses. The book most often open on our desk.

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The Expert's Book of Garden Hints

Hundreds of practical tips collected from working gardeners — soil tricks, pest fixes, season-extending workarounds. Older volume, but the basics don't expire.

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Gardening with Brian Andrews

By Brian Andrews

A compilation of Brian Andrews' long-running Edmonton Journal column — climate-honest advice for zone-3 gardening, from someone who actually gardened in the city. Mostly out of print; watch used-book listings.

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Gardening Without a Garden

By Gay Search

Window boxes, balconies, walls, rooftops, doorsteps — gardening when you don't have soil to dig. Practical for renters, condo dwellers, and anyone with more wall than yard.

Affiliate link coming soon · ISBN 0-88850-555-8

Handbook of the Canadian Rockies

By Ben Gadd

The standard natural-history reference for the Canadian Rockies — geology, weather, plants, animals, and ecology in one volume. Indispensable if you hike, garden, or live within sight of the mountains.

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Mother Earth Plants for Health & Beauty

By Carrie Armstrong

Traditional plant medicine and skincare from a Métis-Cree perspective, by an Edmonton-based herbalist. Part recipes, part teachings, part field guide to plants you can actually find in Alberta.

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Plants of the Rocky Mountains

Pocketable Lone Pine field guide covering trees, shrubs, wildflowers, grasses, ferns, and lichens of the Rockies — with line drawings, photographs, and concise habitat notes.

Affiliate link coming soon — available from Lone Pine Publishing · ISBN 978-1-77213-029-4

Practical Guide to Gardening in Canada

By Edited by Christopher Brickell & Trevor Cole

A Canada-specific gardening reference edited with input from longtime Canadian horticulturist Trevor Cole. Strong on zone-appropriate plant selection and the realities of Canadian climates.

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The Tulip

By Anna Pavord

Anna Pavord's classic cultural history of the tulip — part botany, part chronicle of the seventeenth-century Dutch tulip mania, part appreciation of the bulb that has driven gardens and markets for centuries. The cultural-history companion to Pavord's practical reference, Bulb.

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Terracotta Self-Watering Spikes

Porous terracotta cones that screw onto a recycled bottle and slowly release water as the soil dries. Indispensable for container plants on Alberta balconies — the difference between coming home to thriving pots and crispy ones during a hot, dry prairie summer.

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