The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants

This lush coffee-table book, an outgrowth of gardening writer Reid’s online magazine of the same name, is chockablock with gorgeous images and thoughtful profiles of fellow plant devotees. Rather than penning a how-to on gardening, Reid explores how gardens and plants can serve different roles in people’s lives. She tells the stories of, among others, “accidental activist” Ron Finley, who has come to see his garden in South Central Los Angeles as a way to “create beauty and change”; lawyer-turned-landscape designer Leslie Bennett, who credits the experience of visiting a farm with inspiring her to abandon an unfulfilling career and pursue one she found meaningful; and “seriously obsessive plant hunter” Bruce Dunstan, who takes two trips from his native Australia each year to discover new plant species and bring back seeds (“he’s nuts, but in the best and most important way,” Reid opines). Readers will find it hard not to get caught up in Reid’s enthusiasm for all things botanical, and her enthralling stories, combined with Daniel Shipp’s vibrant nature photography, will appeal to both gardening junkies and neophytes. (May)