As a member of the Official Group of People Who Like Succulents, I was as pleased and inspired as anyone when Debra Lee Baldwin’s new book, Succulent Container Gardens, came out. (I had the added perk of seeing the book far in advance of the actual publication date, too. Ah, the advantages of working in publishing.)

Part of my job in the marketing department at Timber calls for me and my fellow marketers to come up with ideas for how to spread the word about a new book. After all, if no one knows about a book, no one buys a book — a fact that never even occurred to me previous to this job. (People find out about books via osmosis, right?)

For this particular book, we decided that a “how-to” video would be a fun project. We thought that if Debra could give a quick demonstration on how to put together a succulent container garden, people would see how easy (and gorgeous) it can be, and be inspired to plant their own containers. And we would start a SUCCULENT REVOLUTION!!  (You have to think big.)

So that’s what we did, and we are very pleased with the way the video came out.

¡Viva la succulent revolución!

We are giving away three copies of Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers! See the end of this post for details.

I’m not what one would call a visual person. When it comes to taking pictures something always feels a bit off. I know what I want the picture to look like, but getting the camera to cooperate doesn’t always work.

When Timber published Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers in 2008, I knew that I wanted to teach myself to be a better photographer. I bought myself a nice Digital SLR camera, and have been playing around with it with mixed results. I’m still learning the ins and outs of shutter speed and aperture, and am realizing that I should probably experiment with lenses beyond the ones that came with the camera when I bought it.

I couldn’t have been more excited when the first of six podcasts that Alan Detrick did with Timber covered just that—lenses! He gave me some good suggestions on what to look out for in terms of price, lens quality, and how to get the family to help pay for them.

If you are looking for some pointers to help you take the most beautiful shots possible, listen to the Timber Press Podcast for the next six weeks. Alan covers everything a beginner like myself could hope to learn: equipment, lighting, how to handle windy photo shoots, how to find the best composition, and even how to photograph insects.

As spring beings to creep into the Northern hemisphere, any number of you will want to go out and take pictures of all the beauty. To support your efforts, Timber Press is hosting a blog/Twitter giveaway during the course of Alan’s podcasts. All you have to do is show us your favorite macro photograph.  You can email us (web@timberpress.com), or you can leave a link to one of your photos in the comments to this blog or on our Twitter feed.  (If you don’t already follow us on Twitter, please do!) We’ll post the photos we receive on our Flickr page as inspiration (with permission from the photographer.)

We are giving away three copies of Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers . Winners will be chosen from the comments, photos, and tweets on March 8th.

Take out your camera, send us your own shots, and have fun!

This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

Kathryn and I taught a Master Gardener training class on plant disorders, diseases, and pests yesterday. We’ve learned through experience that most plant problems result from poor growing conditions. Growing conditions are physical and cultural environmental factors that affect the well being of your plants.

Light, water, temperature and soil nutrients, for example, are all physical factors of the environment that profoundly affect plant performance. Cultural environmental factors  are the things we, as plant managers, do to the plants in our care, including pruning to improve air movement, thinning heavy crops of fruit, and avoiding overcrowding among many others. Good growing conditions are the foundation for plant health, and eighty percent of plant problems are due to poor growing conditions.

Physical environmental factors include light, water, temperature, and soil.

Sunlight is, of course, vital. All green plants manufacture food from sunlight through photosynthesis. Fertilizer and mineral nutrients are sometimes called “plant food” but that is an erroneous concept. Sugar is actually “plant food” and plants create sugar out of solar energy, water and carbon dioxide. Obviously, if a plant does not get enough sunlight it becomes malnourished and could even starve to death.

Water, like sunlight, is also absolutely vital for a plant’s well being. It moves through the plant’s veins like blood in our own bodies. Water transports food and mineral nutrients to every cell. Roots absorb water, which moves up through the stem, and is lost to the air through the leaves. Losing water through the leaves is the pump that drives water movement through the plant’s body. If the pump stops, the plant can get into serious, life-threatening trouble very quickly.

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We have a new cookbook coming out this spring—The Northwest Vegetarian Cookbook. I am not a vegetarian, but I do eat a mostly plant-based diet. This is more due to my lack of interest in cooking meat than anything else, but it works.

I’ve been looking through the pages this week to get a better understanding of the book. (As an aside—getting paid to read is maybe one of the best parts of publishing.) Though several recipes pique my interest, one really stood out: Black-Eyed Pea Chili. It sounds like a perfect Superbowl meal.

Though my beloved Patriots are not in it, I still love the Superbowl. I like the commercials, the silly halftime show, the energy, and the excuse to have people over to cheer, boo, eat, and drink. I always make a chili, and this recipe sounds like a perfect fit.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

If you’re like most people there are plants somewhere in your personal environment with which you are unfamiliar. You don’t know their names, either the common names in English or the scientific names in Latin. This happens very often when purchase a “pre-owned” home and the former owner’s garden and landscape now belongs to you. Sometime in the first year of ownership, as the various plants in your landscape grow, flower and set seed, a mystery plant will appear.

You might or might not recognize this plant if it showed up in your garden. And you might not know it's a pernicious weed!

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

We’ve prepared a list of the ten most common problems of houseplants. If you’re having a problem with a houseplant, it’s most likely going to be due to one of the following.

1. Overwatering.

More houseplants die from overwatering than from any other cause. Never let the pot sit in water in a saucer. Put marbles or pebbles in the saucer and set your pot on top of them to raise the pot up and away from the water in the saucer. Make sure the pot has adequate drainage holes. Allow soil to dry out in between watering. When you water, water the root zone of the plant, not the foliage.

This crown-of-thorns houseplant struggles to survive in a pot without drainage holes.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

New 2010 seed catalogs arrive in the mail filled with gorgeous color photos of the latest and greatest new vegetables. They’re so tempting. The seduction begins with color, continues with persuasive and evocative text, and caps it off with price reductions to seal the deal. I want them all, but of course, I can’t have them all. There’s not enough room or time to have everything that looks good. So, how does one choose? I have several criteria that I apply to winnow the field of choices down to a select few.

First, choose varieties which do well for you in your climate and put the right plant in the right place. That may sound simple-minded, but many people don’t realize what a difference it makes. Read the catalog descriptions and the package labels carefully and pay attention to the number of days to maturity and the sunlight, temperature, and water requirements. For example, climate has a huge influence on productivity and flavor of tomatoes, the number one crop, nationwide, grown by home gardeners. If you live in a place that has hot, humid summer nights and a nice long growing season then you have numerous choices of tomatoes you can grow successfully that will actually taste good. Any of the ‘Beefsteak’ type tomato cultivars, for example, do well in the eastern half of the USA. They do not do well in the western half because the west is dry and nights are cool. If you live in a place that has cool, dry summer nights and a short growing season the number of tomato cultivars you can grow is quite limited, and some of them have no flavor at all. Learn what your growing conditions are in your area, and go online or on the phone to check with the Master Gardeners for their recommendations of varieties that do well in your climate. You can also check with your neighbors or your local garden clubs to learn which cultivars are successful in your area and which are not.

Tomato cultivar 'Santiam' is a reliable producer under short season, cool conditions and it also is quite tasty

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

Bringing a tree into your home to celebrate the holidays is a tradition that comes to us from ancient times. For many centuries before the birth of Jesus, pagans celebrated the winter solstice by bringing boughs of evergreen trees into their homes and decorating them. In the 1850’s Christians in America began to adopt the practice amidst great controversy. But no matter what your religious philosophy, whether you’re celebrating Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, bringing a tree into your home in the middle of winter is a pleasant thing to do. It symbolizes the return of the light and the promise of renewal in the spring, and that’s a good thing.

There are so many choices, how do you decide which kind of tree you want to bring into your home? Kathryn and I are oddballs in that respect because for many years we had a lovely old weeping fig tree (Ficus benjamina) in our living room. Through most of the year she was simply a houseplant. But on the winter solstice we transformed her by dressing her with lights, ornaments, and tinsel so she became a glorious holiday tree for a couple of weeks. Any large houseplant, palms or dracaenas for example, can be used for a holiday tree. Many people use a potted Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria excelsa) in the same way. Still, cold-hardy conifers are the tree of choice for many, especially a live tree versus a cut one.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

Today, the last of November, beginning of December, snow is flying in many parts of the USA. Many die-hard gardeners in colder areas turn to houseplants to satisfy that perennial itch to commune with the green world. These days it seems you find lots of houseplants for sale wherever you go. Many grocery stores, even big box stores, now boast a tantalizing display of gorgeous exotic orchids in full bloom along with other houseplants. The flamboyant color and opulent form of orchid flowers are seductive. Like sultry temptresses they lure us into their embrace and many of us succumb to their charms.

For many people, orchids have the reputation (undeserved!) that they are demanding and difficult to grow. Poppycock! Orchids are tough customers that hang on under the most trying of circumstances so long as minimal needs are met. The only finicky aspect of orchid culture is the potting medium because they cannot grow in soil.

Many orchids make excellent flowering houseplants. Take a word from the wise and be careful though, because once you start growing orchids you may never stop! At one time in our lives Kathryn and I owned an orchid nursery and tissue culture lab in Hawaii with several thousand orchids. We were also judges with the American Orchid Society and we literally lived and breathed orchids for years.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

It’s late November and garden ghosts from last summer’s bounty may still linger in standing dead stalks of flowers long gone. Unfortunately, some of this left-over plant material may be infected with fungal or bacterial diseases. Roses may keep their foliage until well into winter, even if it’s infected with black spot or powdery mildew. Pear leaves infested with blister mites will come back to haunt you if you don’t rake them up. And all those tomato vines that succumbed to late blight last summer will cause you problems next year unless you get rid of them.

Getting infected plant material out of your garden is called sanitizing and it’s one of the basic tools for managing plant disease or infestations by insects or mites. Sanitizing disrupts the life cycle of these organisms. The bacteria and fungi inside dead infected plant material are still alive and waiting for the opportunity to reproduce. Insects, mites, and eggs are also not dead but merely dormant, waiting for winter to be over. The bacteria, fungi, insects, and mites will all begin to reproduce and create a new generation to infect your garden again next spring as soon as the weather permits. When you seek and destroy these critters while they are dormant you have drastically decreased the numbers that will survive to give you headaches next year. If you can gather all the infected and/or infested material up and get it out of your garden you have reduced the inoculum load significantly. The result is less disease and fewer pests. Sanitizing won’t eradicate these problems but it will give you a fighting chance to manage your garden more effectively.

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