Jefferson's Garden

Author of more than 20 books, from Thoreau's Garden to Solving Deer Problems, Loewer is vice president of the Botanical Gardens at Asheville, North Carolina. He here celebrates the gardens at Monticello, as designed by the nation's first president-cum-landscape-architect. After three brief chapters on Jefferson as a""Planter and Landscape Architect,"" on Monticello's layout and gorgeous flora, and on""The Importance of Seeds in America,"" Loewer offers sections of Annuals and Perennials (including""The Fanciful Cockscomb"" and""The Sensitive Plant"") Shrubs, Trees and Vines. With more than 70 entries, each with a fine line drawing, a foreword from Peggy Cornett (who is director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants at Monticello) and a bibliography, readers won't have to make the trip in order to reproduce, or at least approximate, that major American garden's splendors.