Saturday, January 24, 2009

Garden Guide for Austin and Vicinity

Last fall, at the Master Gardener's Fall Garden seminar, I found the Garden Guide for Austin and Vicinity in the little Zilker Park Botanical Store (Chrysalis Shop). Since no one was working the cash register I couldn't buy it, but put it on my list of "Things I need to buy for the Garden."

This last Monday, since I had the day off, I decided to go in search of this book. The Travis County Master Gardener's website has a list of places where this book is sold. There is one kinda close to me called "It's a Jungle" at Kramer and Lamar.

Since my friend Sarah and I have a tradition of hanging out for a couple of hours each MLK day (we normally only see each other once or twice a year), I decided that I would go over to her house for a little while then drive over to the garden shop before it closed.

I managed to find the shop and I went into the store area and looked around for the book, I didn't see it so I hunted down an employee. She told me they didn't have any and that she was going to call the MGs because I was the 3rd person that week who asked for it. I wandered around for a little while longer (if you like orchids, roses, or citrus trees, this is the place to go), then left empty handed.

Magically, as if by fate, my coworker Ross asked if I had ever gotten the book, I said no and that it pissed me off since I made a special trip just to get the book. He then offered to loan me his book for a while since he lives in an apartment and can only do container gardening and he had already read the book through a couple of times. So, now I have the book on loan. Yippee! There's quite a bit about turf grasses, which I will make Shawn read since the lawn is his turf (ha ha, get it?) and I will read the parts about flowers and vegetables. And maybe, eventually, I will get a citrus (or peach) tree and attempt to grow one, without killing it off, obviously.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've seen it at Green 'n Growing on Pecan/1825 in Pflugerville. I don't know how far out of your way that is, but I don't live super far from It's a Jungle, and it's kind of my regular nursery. I sure wish we had more nurseries in this general area, though!

Annie in Austin said...

My copy of the Garden Guide for Austin came from Red Barn a few years ago, Katina. (Maybe that was more than a few years ago since mine's the First Edition and the current one is Third Edition.) I don't know if Red Barn still sells it but you could call them.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

katina said...

The Red Barn isn't listed, but it is the closest non-big-box garden shop in my area. I'll probably check there next time I'm in. If they dont' have it, I'll just have to go to "The Great Outdoors" during my lunch break sometime.

Anonymous said...

I do container gardening but also have the room in the yard to more. Sounds like I need to get this.

Lori said...

Lowe's seems to carry the Garden Guide right next to the checkout in the garden section pretty reliably, or at least the Lowe's in south Austin does. Maybe the ones up north do too? I have my Garden Guide practically memorized. :)

Unknown said...

FYI, the MGs will be revising the book this year, hopefully to have the new edition available in the fall. So if you can hold off a bit longer, you can have the new edition!