BLOG.JESSIEKEITH.COM: Garden Book Review: Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs (2011)

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In 1995, Jessie became a Master Gardener, accepted a job as a landscape designer and had a farmer's market booth selling garden flowers. The following year she attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana where she graduated with honors in 1999 with a BS in Public Horticulture. At Purdue, she worked for two years as garden intern at The Purdue University Horticulture Gardens and was mentored by Dr. Harrison Flint and Dr. Michael Dana. She also served as undergraduate teacher’s assistant in woody and herbaceous plant identification and introductory horticulture classes.

In 1999, she accepted a yearlong position as the curatorial intern at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA under the tutelage of celebrated curator and author, Dr. Tomasz Anisko. Graduate school at Michigan State University followed. There she studied systematic botany and completed her MS degree in the winter of 2003. Shortly after graduation, she accepted an internship at The American Gardener magazine, the journal of The American Horticultural Society, where she received guidance from editor-in-chief, David Ellis, and distinguished scientist and horticulturist, Dr. H. Marc Cathey.

Jessie taught horticulture for two years at Williamson Free School in Media, Pennsylvania before pursuing a career in garden writing and plant photography. She began to work as content editor for Learn2grow.com in 2007 and has written articles for publications such as The Old House Journal, The Green Scene, What’s Up! Annapolis? and The Herbarist. She most recently served as one-time horticultural editor for Wilder Quarterly.

Today, Jessie lives in Wilmington, Delaware with her husband Knut, daughters Franziska and Gabriella, two geriatric cats, and thousands of garden plants.

BLOG.JESSIEKEITH.COM: Garden Book Review: Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs (2011)

Garden Book Review: Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs (2011)

Over the years I've wrangled with Dirr's books on woody plants--his more scholastic Manual of Woody Landscape Plants (1998) has the technical information I want but is visually lacking, while his Hardy Trees and Shrubs: an Illustrated Encyclopedia (1997) is slim on content but pretty. It was my hope that the new Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs (2011), which is slated to hit bookshelves in November, would strike a balance between the two older volumes, and largely it does.

Overall, Dirr's new encyclopedia is prettier and easier to peruse than previous volumes, and it's heavy on content. Around 3,530 much-welcome glossy color pictures replace the occasional black-and-white sketches found in the old manual. Clean alphabetical organization of plant species also makes it easier to find plants as does the simple index of botanical names in the back of the book. Students, landscape specialists and gardeners will also appreciate the useful lists of "Selected Plants for Specific Characteristics or Purposes," also found in the back of the book.

The chief setback of Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs is its "text embedded data," a problem I had with his 1997 encyclopedia. When I want basic characteristic information about a plant, I don't want to read paragraphs. Perhaps my perspective is biased. Not only did I learn woody plants from Dirr's Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, I taught with it and favor its mode of delivery. Its neatly partitioned characteristic information, offered under headers like Hardiness, Habit, Culture and Diseases and Insects, is very accessible. I would value this new encyclopedia far more if it distilled basic information down in a similar fashion.

Lots of new cultivars make the encyclopedia an important update on older volumes. Once again, it's a little challenging picking through the paragraphs to find plants, but the information about them is concise and apt. Dirr highlights those varieties he likes best, which is also beneficial.

Overall, Dirr's new book offers excellent and thorough coverage of hardy woody plants well-adapted to many parts of North America. Its information is very good, as always, though sometimes approached from a southeastern perspective. I would recommend this book to any gardener seeking a definitive book on woody landscape plants for North America.