Among the stack of books I have for review are several recommended for holiday giving.
Thomas Leo Ogren is known internationally for Allergy-Free Gardening, published originally in 2000. He has developed OPALS, the Ogren Plant Allergy Scale, which classifies plants according to their tendencies to aggravate allergies.
His 2015 book, The Allergy-Fighting Garden (10 Speed Press, $22.99) expands the list and offers lessons on how to identify the sex of plants. A big part of the problem, he says, is that we plant mostly male specimens because female plants frequently are deemed messy because the produce fruit. When only male plants are planted, the pollen floats around searching for females, but finding none and lodging in your eyes, nose and throat instead.
This book will help not only homeowners and gardeners, but commercial landscapers, too.
Many of us are concerned about the plight of monarchs and bees, but there are thousands of other insects that are good for our gardens. Roughly 1 percent of the million identified insect species are considered harmful, with the rest as benign or beneficial, said Jessica Walliser in her book Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden (Timber Press, $24.95).
Walliser, a horticulturist who loves bugs probably more than plants, teaches readers how to design gardens to support insect activity and what plants are best for the job. Her book would be an aid for teachers as well as gardeners, who want to know more about the insects in their world.
As development continues to gobble up natural areas in our communities, Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West (Timber Press, $39.95) takes on the challenge. “The front lines of the battle for nature are not in the Amazon rain forest or the Alaskan wilderness. The front lines are our backyards, medians, parking lots and elementary schools,” they write. The ecological warriors are gardeners, landscapers, teachers and others and this book is dedicated to anyone who can influence a small patch of land.
If you are looking for a beautiful coffee table book about a beautiful garden, you can’t go wrong with The Art of Gardening by R. William Thomas and others, photographed by Rob Cardillo (Timber Press, $34.95). 
This book is about Chanticleer, dubbed a pleasure garden, which it is. Chanticleer is my favorite public garden in the country, and this book captures all of the artful design and innovative techniques that makes this place so special.
