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Summertime, and the reading is easy . . .

© Lorraine Flanigan

As I write, I hear the cicadas outside the window signaling that the lazy, hot days of summer are here. When temperatures hover in the low 30s, I turn a blind eye to the deadheading, planting and dividing that needs to be done in the garden, find a comfortable chaise in the backyard, and with a cool drink at my side, flip open the pages of a book. And of course, obsessed as I am about gardening, quite often the books I choose have a gardening theme. If you're in "read-only" mode this month, away at the cottage, booked into a resort or simply relaxing in the garden, take a peak over my shoulder for a look at some fun, quirky, heartwarming and intriguing books with a gardening theme.

Judging by the number of humorous books with a gardening theme, the anatomy of a garden writer must include a very pronounced funny bone. One of these writers lives here in Southern Ontario. Not only is his website a hoot to visit, but David Hobson has published a number of books that take a whimsical look at the eccentricities of gardeners and their all-consuming hobby. With a plot that reads like an episode of I Love Lucy, his first book, Soiled Reputations is about two neighboring gardeners who engage in a little "companion planting". Hobson's second book, Diary of a Mad Gardener, is a daily gardening journal of the wonderfully wacky Dibble, a "mad" gardener who "boldly grows where no one has groan before". If puns like these tickle your funny bone, you'll love reading Dibble's diary.

Another Canadian writer who sees the humour in gardening is West Coast gardener, Des Kennedy. The Garden Club and the Kumquat Campaign is the story of garden club members who decide to join a group of activists to save the forests of Kumquat Sound. Full of eccentric characters and give-your-head-a-shake weather forecasts like this one: "Wasps are still feedin' their grubs. That's a good sign. Indian summer for sure", The Garden Club is a quick, light read for budding environmental activitists.

Reading the correspondence of other gardeners seems like the perfect summer pastime. The Garden Letters is a compilation of letters between two gardening friends, Elspeth Bradbury, a landscape architect who moved to British Columbia from New Brunswick and the friend she left behind, Judy Maddocks. Their correspondence is comprised of equal parts gardening wisdom and good friendship. In a follow-up book, The Real Garden Road Show, the gardening duo take to the road for a cross-country garden tour that gives readers a wonderful view of Canadian gardeners and their gardens.