Green Means Go Relax: What We’re Reading and Sipping This Summer
In the languid heat of July and August, a luxuriant garden is like your own plot of paradise—and one best enjoyed with a libation and a book you can’t put down. We’re currently steeping ourselves in garden lore inspired by the gardens of our co-founder and CEO Will Massie—whose reading list and favorite plant and nursery sources are below—and sipping a Ranch Water cocktail.
WHAT WE'RE READING
The Art & Craft of Garden Making
First published in 1900, this legendary tome by British landscape designer Thomas Hayton Mawson holds up beautifully more than a century on—with prescient advice on everything from wall gardens to landscape plans for semi-detached houses. Will’s copy is an exacting recreation of the 1926 edition, complete with glimmering gilt lettering.
Manual of Woody Landscape Plants
Doctor Michael Dirr explored the grounds of some 112 gardens to develop this 1,250-page “Horticulture Bible,” chockablock with 2,000 species and cultivars of hardy woody plants.
America’s Garden Book
A true classic first published in 1939 from the plant prodigies at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with more than 1,000 pages to detail everything from soil types to low-maintenance plantings.
Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs: An Illustrated Encyclopedia
Trees are arguably more vital now than ever before—and this iconic guide traverses them from root to canopy, with more than 500 species that flourish in cooler climates.
Historic Virginia Gardens: Preservations by the Garden Club of Virginia
If you’ve ever wanted to deep-dive into the actual landscape plans of everyone from 17th century Virginia colonists to U.S. Presidents, this is a must. The historic diagrams reprinted within are authentic, and you’ll feel like you’re exploring files so delicate they require archival gloves—but the information compiled is every bit as hardy today.
The Education of a Gardener
Every gardener knows true education is had on the land, getting your hands dirty season after season. But this 1962 guide by British landscape architect Russell Page, who worked with Babe Paley and Oscar de la Renta, is a close second—complete with his hard-won lessons and explanations to timeless questions like “where does style start?” (The short answer, notes Page: “Style for the garden designer means to assemble all the physical elements of a garden scene, to blend them into a coherent whole and to imbue this whole with all the intensity or, perhaps I should say ‘intelligence’ that he can muster, so that the whole may have a quality peculiar to itself.”)
WILL'S FAVORITE PLANT AND NURSERY SOURCES
REGIONAL
Saunders Brothers - Will's go-to for Boxwood (wholesale only)
Colesville Nursery - Ashland, VA
Grelen Nursery - Somerset, VA
Ivy Nursery - Charlottesville, VA
Pine Knot Farms - Hellebores specialist near Clarksville, VA
NORTHEAST
Bonsai West - Littleton, MA
Halka Nursery - Millstone Township, NJ (wholesale only)
Van Engelen Bulbs - Bantam, CT
Atlock Farm - Renown Myrtle topiary supplier in Somerset, NJ
Snug Harbor Farm - Great topiaries, succulents, and tropical plants in Kennebunk, ME
WEST
Rolling Greens - Excellent selection of plants and pots in Culver City, CA
Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery - Located in a Los Angeles neighborhood with many Japanese style houses that date to the 1930s
The Tropics Inc. Nursery Club - Exotic plants and trees in Los Angeles
RANCH WATER COCKTAIL RECIPE
One of Texas’s most iconic exports also happens to be among the easiest cocktails to make…and a proven antidote for the humid summer heat.
Ingredients
2 ounces Tequila (Will likes Codigo 1530 Anejo)
1 ounce fresh lime juice (about half a lime)
Topo Chico Sparkling water
Ice
Lime wedge, for garnish
Directions
Pour tequila over ice. Squeeze the juice from half a lime and fill the rest of the glass with Topo Chico. Stir gently to combine. Garnish with a lime wedge. Splay out on a shady spot and enjoy.
