Mid-Atlantic Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition

Thank you to the publisher, NetGalley, and author for a copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback. I am approaching this book as a beginner gardener with a general knowledge of the practices and skills needed to maintain a garden space. I am not in the Mid-Atlantic area, but I am still approaching this book with hoping to gain some knowledge and to gauge to accessibility of the content.

The book is separated into sections that are: 1) annuals, 2) bulbs, 3) perennials & ornamental grasses, 4) groundcovers, 5) shrubs, 6) trees, 7) turfgrasses, 8) veg and herbs, 9) vines.

The content is straight forward. Lots of details, but clear and necessary / helpful information. Lots of high quality photographs. The plant profiles were my favorite part of this book, I'd find this sort of collection helpful for identifying plants & to know their needs all together in one spot. It also helps to give ideas on creating projects because you have all the information front and center.

This book is so full of information, I cannot wait to put it to good use. As someone who just loves to a home with space to garden in PA, I’m definitely going to be using this book as my helped along the way.

Mid-Atlantic Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition is a reformatted and updated 2nd edition of the region specific gardening guide by Katie Elzer-Peters. Originally released in 2013, this edition is due out in March 2022 from Quarto on their Cool Springs imprint. It's 240 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is an accessibly written information dense regional gardening guide specifically aimed at gardeners in the mid-Atlantic areas of the USA: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington D.C. and environs. The information is arranged in a logical manner with chapters arranged thematically. An introduction covers the benefits and challenges gardeners living in these areas experience is followed by: annuals, bulbs, groundcovers, perennials, shrubs (& trees), grasses, and vegetables & herbs. The chapters are thorough and contain solid recommendations with both specific cultivars as well as general seasonal task lists for each chapter. Cultivars are referred to by botanical (Latin) nomenclature as well as common name to facilitate sourcing and reduce mistaken IDs.

The book is -full- of full color photographs for inspiration and clarity. The book includes a glossary of terms and cross referenced index.

Four stars. This would be a good choice for public and school libraries, gardening groups, community/allotment gardens, suburban gardeners, homeowners, etc. There's a similarity of format and presentation between all the books in this series which makes them easy to use and reference no matter where readers are gardening.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.