"Garden Up!" I wonder how many trees were killed so my tree could be in a book?

There's a brand-spankin' new book out just last week that shows (features is a strong word) my columnar apple tree in my front yard. The book, Garden Up! was written by garden-blogging acquaintances Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet (what do you call people you've had online conversations with, but have never met?).

The book should be considered mandatory reading for urban gardeners. Or any gardener, really, it just so happens that we urban gardeners grow up as a necessity, after we've got the ground covered.

There are so many great ideas in the book – divide into chapters like: Arbors & Trellises; Skinny Spaces; Urban Gardening; Edibles; Living Walls and Plant Picks.

It was great to thumb through at first because I spotted many gardens of which I've become familiar. Many gardens used throughout the book were of other garden bloggers that I've met (some in person!) and I've seen their gardens on their garden blogs. It's sort of weird to be intimate with a garden you've never been in – to be able to recognize it and picture parts of it that aren't even shown.

I have not had the time to read through it in it's entirety yet. It's broken down into side bars, call outs, photo captions, detail shots, how-tos, and beautiful photographs – so its easy to pick up and wander through to get ideas. But I know both Susan & Rebecca are engaging & informative writers so I'm looking forward to reading it cover to cover. Both are landscape designers. Susan's written for Fine Gardening, among other media, and blogs at www.BluePlanetGardening.com. Rebecca is a columnist for Fine Gardening magazine, and has had her garden design work featured in Fine Gardening and Horticulture magazines. She blogs at www.GossipInTheGarden.com.

My favorite part of the book though, is page 130. In the chapter on Edibles—where my columnar apple tree gets its due. The tree was purchased in a Binghamton, NY Agway store. It was a gift from my mother after my dad died seven years ago. She bought a tree-of-our-choosing each for me, my brother and sister. Dad wasn't fond of trees in particular. Hell, he'd mow down anything smaller than a shrub—a gardener he was not. But BOY could he spend hours on the riding lawn mower, or rolling the yard, or distributing weed killer every weekend. I do think of him often when I walk by the tree now—and think about how he'd hate my garden—nary a patch of grass to shear.