One Day Only Half Price Sale

Saturday, August 2 is the day for Friends Main Street Books Half Price Sale. All books priced at 50cents and over will be 50% off. There are a few exceptions: vintage paperbacks and science fiction will NOT be discounted.

There will be tables outside full of 25cent books and paperback romances at 10 for $1.00 - no additional discounts.

This is a one day only sale, Saturday, August 2 from 9 to 3.

May Newsletter: In Your Mailbox and Online

You should have received your May Newsletter by now, but if you haven't you can now access it on the Shasta Libraries home page: Click here to view the latest newsletter. It's great to see the artwork and pictures in color!

Get Your Gardening Gloves On...

Happy Spring!

Are you ready to get out in the yard now that the snow’s melted and the soil’s thawed? Need some help planning a new garden? Wondering how to prune those old trees? The library should be your first stop: yeah, even before the visit to the plant nursery.

There are some wonderful books to help with every aspect of gardening, from rejuvenating your old landscaping to creating a new bed or planning a brand new garden.

One of my favorite authors is Tracy DiSabato-Aust, author of The Well-Tended Perennial Garden and The Well-Designed Mixed Garden. The former describes hundreds of flowering plants and how to plant and prune and pinch for maximum effect. The latter discusses plant combinations by location, color, plant needs and visual interest. Christopher Lloyd’s Succession Planting for Year-Round Pleasure shows how to structure your plantings for flowering interest through the seasons. The photographs of the same area of a garden through the seasons are invaluable for showing just how much you can do in a small area to keep it interesting from spring through fall. The Garden Design Book by Cheryl Merser is chock-full of beautiful pictures and nifty hints for gardens of all sizes.

If you have specific needs, the library has books on all the niche areas of the garden: vegetables, rock gardens, shade areas, water features and more. The Master Book of the Water Garden by Philip Swindells will take you from design to construction to plant selection. You can learn how to make stone walls, paths and waterfalls with Simple Stonescaping by Philip Raines. Fences and Gate: A Do It Yourself Guide to Design and Construction will help you choose and build the perfect fence for security, privacy or show.

Want to learn waterwise gardening? Xeriscape Handbook: A How-To Guide to Natural Resource-Wise Gardening by Gayle Weinstein will walk you through designing, knowing your soil, choosing the right plants and irrigation. Dryland Gardening: Plants That Survive and Thrive in Tough Conditions by Jennifer Bennett discusses the many plants that can lesson your water usage and still give you a magnificent garden. Jennifer Bennet’s Dry-Land Gardening: A Xeriscaping Guide for Dry-Summer, Cold-Winter Climates reads like it was written just for the Intermountain Area. M. Nevin Smith’s Native Treasures: Gardening With the Plants of California is indeed a treasure, celebrating the vast amount of species that are native to our state. Beautifully written and photographed, the book has a wealth of practical information and is just a fascinating read.

Books about specific plants abound. Gardening With Conifers by Adrian Bloom is an exquisite book showing how to use evergreens as background in the landscape, mixed with other plants and as stars in their own right. The pictures are gorgeous and the descriptions are thorough. Two books in The Woody Plant series by Glyn Church are Trees and Shrubs for Foliage and Trees and Shrubs For Flowers. Both books have color photographs and very detailed descriptions of hundreds of varieties. The Complete Book of Cacti & Succulents by Terry Hewitt calls itself “the definitive practical guide to cultivation, propagation and display.” The New Flower Gardener by Pippa Greenwood has picture step-by-step photographs of flower care, and discusses flowers by bloom type and size and plant shape and structure. I never knew there were so many different types of vines until I read Climbing Plants by Barbara Abbs. She shows how to plant and train them and where to use them: some climbers even make good ground covers.

If roses are your favorites, Botanica’s Roses will have you looking for more space to grow more varieties of this most beautiful plant. Over 2,000 roses are listed and pictured. The American Rose Society’s Ultimate Rose by DK Publishing does a great job showing the classifications of roses, their looks and their uses. Horticulture’s Climbing Roses by Stephen Scanniello and Tania Bayard gives an in-depth look at the multitude of varieties of climbers and their uses.

Throughout the summer we’ll all have some sort of bug or fungus or critter problem, and a favorite source of help is The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control. It’s written alphabetically by plant, what can go wrong and how to fix it. Another favorite is the American Horticultural Society’s Pests and Diseases: The Complete Guide to Preventing, Identifying and Treating Plant Problems. Color pictures help identify symptoms and damage on bud, leaf and stem, and full descriptions of treatment (chemical and chemical-free) follow. Peter Loewer’s Solving Deer Problems talks about fencing, chemical deterrents and plants that are “unpopular” with deer. Of course, most folks who have deer munching through their gardens will understand when the author quotes a friend from California who says he’s shortened his “deer-proof” list to oleander and old bricks.

Reading about the garden is the next best thing to digging in the dirt. The garden is new every year – I can’t wait to see what’s coming up, what didn’t survive the winter (or the gophers or the dogs) – and what I can do to make it better. I’m happy in my garden, seeing something I babied along growing strong. I love being surprised by a combination or placement that worked. And I always think next year will be even better!

February Newsletter

The new edition of the FOIL newsletter will be in your mail the first week of February. You'll find a lot of information about new books at the library, including instructions on how to use the Library website to place a hold on any item.

Library Changes Don't Affect Burney Library

By now everyone's heard that the Shasta Public Library Director Joy Sentman-Paz resigned last Thursday to pursue other career opportunities. Kim Ingram, the Assistant Library Director had also given her notice in November. Her last day was December 21.

LSSI, the Library's management company is actively seeking a new director. In the meantime Mark Smith, LSSI's VP forWest Coast Operations will be on hand, as well as last year's interim director Linda Mielke.

What does all this mean for the Burney Branch Library? Business as usual. No changes in hours, materials, plans or personnel. Burney Library - still plugging along!