Northeast Gardening: The Diverse Art and Special Considerations of Gardening in the Northeast

McDonald, director of special projects at the Brooklyn Botanicstet Garden in New York and author of a syndicated column on houseplants, here attempts ``no more than to share the ways we are gardening today in the Northeast.'' The book's scope comprises the mid-Atlantic states, New England and Eastern Canada, while the author's gardening experience appears to have been concentrated in Brooklyn and Long Island. So although he presents much trenchant information to neophyte gardeners on urban, seaside and container gardening, McDonald tends to gloss over topics pertinent to non-New Yorkers: how to control slugs, repel deer or cope with late-spring frosts, for example. The prose is less highly polished than the elegantly produced photographs in the volume; McDonald is no stylist, and the studiously neutral tone he employs in opening chapters becomes dull. Lovely as they are, the many photos of sumptuous private gardens tend to belie his assertion that gardening is a calling open to folks of all classes. But McDonald offers many practical gardening tips and techniques, as well as imaginative planting suggestions and extensive lists of nurseries, garden suppliers, public gardens and garden societies. (Dec.)