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A photo from “Native Plants for New England Gardens” by Mark Richardson and Dan Jaffe. Pictured: Blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), once wrongly touted as a cure for syphllis, is a true blue flower, It’s shape gives bees a place to land, and it does well in moist to wet soils. What to do this week: Water Christmas trees daily. A humidifier is good for both plants and people. Outdoor lighting at night can disrupt the night/day cycles of owls and other wildlife, so install a timer to turn them off at bedtime. And for a family-friendly outdoor lights display, catch the delightful “Winterlights” this month at three historic gardens owned by the Trustees of Reservations : the Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate in Canton, Stevens-Coolidge Place in North Andover, and Naumkeag in Stockbridge. Books make great gifts for gardeners. Many are lushly illustrated with eye candy that will help even dilettante gardeners ward off the winter blues. My recommendations and their cover prices: For the new gardener: “Rodale’s Basic Organic Gardening: A Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Healthy Garden’’ by Deborah L. Martin (Rodale, $19.99). Using jargon-free terms, she takes you chronologically from planning in the winter through harvesting the next fall. For the flower arranger: “Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest & Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms” by Erin Benzakein with Julie Chai (Chronical Books, $29.99). Erin Benzakein’s successful cut-flower farm in Washington’s lush Skagit Valley (where she’s been called the “Dahlia Lama”) has inspired a nationwide wave of green-thumb women to grow flowers for market, as well as for fun. A bestseller, this book tells you the best flowers for cutting and their needs, which can be very different than landscape plants’. “Seasonal Flower Arranging: Fill Your Home With Blooms, Branches, and Foraged Materials All Year Round’’ (Ten Speed Press, $25) by Ariella Chezar and Julie Michaels. Michaels is a former Boston Globe editor, and Chezar is an arranger and flower grower who also has pioneered the trend toward more fragile locally sourced bouquets as a “green’’ alternative to the overly familiar and rather stiff mass-produced flowers air-freighted […]

Source: realestate.boston.com