Other area gardening

Question from Llyana:
First of all thank you so much for your book, Southern California Gardening-Month by Month. I can’t tell you how much I rely on it and have learned so much that it has become the only book I recommend for San Diegan gardening friends.
Here’s the thing, my daughter just bought her first home and came down with the gardening bug. She wants something like your book but for her area. Salt Lake City. Can you recommend any ideas where she can start looking for a guide like yours and my second question is will you be considering having a computer application made for your month by month guide? Again, it is such a pleasure to be able to thank you for your book and I hope I can meet you at one of your presentations one day.

Answer from Pat:
I’m delighted to know that my book has been so helpful and thank you for recommending it to friends. Even now, after it’s been on the market in various editions for more than 20 years some Southern California gardeners have never heard of it. Regarding your daughter in Salt Lake City, there is a book called “Cutting Edge Gardening in the Inter-Mountain West” and another book called “Temple Square Gardening” published by Deseret Books, but I don’t know anything about either of these books. If there is a genuine need for a regional garden book just for the Salt Lake area, and if none exists, why doesn’t your daughter write one?

I began collecting clippings and materials for my book more than 50 years ago. After that, I became a garden editor and writer for a local magazine. I researched each article I wrote by talking to the expert growers and owners of specialty nurseries that grew specific plants. Also we had many horticultural clubs filled with people who knew how to grow specific plants. I interviewed them also and attended their meetings. Later, during my career on regularly-scheduled TV I was on the evening news (NBC station) twice a week year-round demonstrating “jobs to do now” in one’s local garden. Once again I did careful research, not from books but from professional growers and long-time gardeners. I discovered many horticultural secrets from growers, farmers, and seasoned nursery owners, not the folks who worked for them but the owners who had a lifetime of experience with plants. For example when I did a show on azaleas I interviewed the top azalea grower in the region and I traveled to Altadena to learn about camellia culture from Julia Nucchio, California’s legendary grower. Some of these great men would see me on TV and then contact me, eager to share with me information only they knew so I could then teach my viewers. All the knowledge I garnered from my years on TV and at San Diego Home/Garden Magazine and from my own lifetime, growing up on a farm and gardening all my life went into my book. Others have tried to write books competing with mine, but no one can do so unless they were to copy it word for word. My publisher does not advertise so it’s all word-of-mouth or my own efforts to spread the word. My strength in that regard is not as great as it once was, but I can’t help that.

Regarding my considering a computer application, no I have not thought of that. I try to do what I love doing and this sounds like something I would hate doing. Besides, it might compete with my book, but mainly, doing something like that just doesn’t fall within my type of skills. Even though I have used a mac computer for writing TV scripts and books since 1985, I am not at all computer oriented. However I have an agreement with Google, as many authors have, and so my entire book is on the Internet and pops up as a reference to answer people’s questions if they word their questions properly. My books have appeared that way for years, as part of Google’s archives and in this way they are available to all search engines.

Currently I am writing another book but it is not a garden book. So far, it is going well, but I have only written 3 chapters of this one. I hope it will be a success and bring pleasure to a wide audience.