My yard is waking up. Grass is growing, trees are budding, robins are a-hopping—it’s wonderful. Not far from my home is a small piece of land with what I like to call wild daffodils. I’m sure it was farmland in the past, and perhaps someone planted daffodil bulbs in a garden there, but the farm (and possible garden) exist no more—“improved” with roads and houses at some point. Yet there is a small section of dirt next to the road that sprouts dozens of daffodils every spring. These happy—and wild—yellow flowers act as my barometer for the transition from winter to spring. By the way, they’re starting to bloom right now, so here’s to warmer days ahead.
The arrival of spring also means that nurseries and garden centers will soon be full of potting soils, plants, and flowers. Not only is the grass waking up, so is the desire to dig in the dirt and grow stuff. I checked the library’s catalog and found many newly published gardening titles in the collection. This is the time to gather gardening knowledge in preparation for the 2023 growing season, so be sure to include visiting the library on your gardening to-do list.
- The Garden Refresh: How to Give Your Yard Big Impact on a Small Budget by Kier Holmes.
- The Home-Scale Forest Garden: How to Plan, Plant, and Tend a Resilient Edible Landscape by Dani Baker.
- Plant, Grow, Harvest, Repeat: Grow a Bounty of Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers by Mastering the Art of Succession Gardening by Meg McAndrews.
- Raised Bed Gardening: All the Know-How You Need to Build and Grow a Raised Bed Garden by CaliKim.
- The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Guide: How to Combine Shape, Color, and Texture to Create the Garden of Your Dreams by Jenny Rose Carey.
- We Are the Ark: Returning Our Gardens to Their True Nature with Acts of Restorative Kindness by Mary Reynolds.
New at the Library
Fiction
- Cold People by Tom Rob Smith.
- A Killing of Innocents by Deborah Crombie.
- The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane.
Nonfiction
- Eating from Our Roots: 80+ Healthy Home-Cooked Favorites from Cultures Around the World by Maya Feller.
- Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson by Rebecca Boggs Roberts.
- We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds by Sally Adee.
Children
- How Many Squirrels Are in the World? written by Mister G (Ben Gundersheimer), illustrated by Marcos Almada Rivero.
- I Did It Myself!: I Can Get Dressed, Brush My Teeth, Put on My Shoes, and More by Saniyyah Khalilallah.
- The Town with No Mirrors by Christina Collins.
This is just a small sampling of the many new titles added each week to the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries collection. Find more in our catalog, or call 360-906-5000 to reserve titles or find additional listings.
Jan Johnston, Collection Manager
Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries
You can email Jan at readingforfun@fvrl.org.
