Plan Your Garden at the Library

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, orator, scholar, statesman

It’s that time of year to get outside and stick your hands in the dirt, but, before you slip on those gardening gloves, check out the free resources available through your library, including books, e-resources, DVDs, magazines, and other materials on growing just about anything in just about any size space, whether it’s in a clay pot or a full-blown vegetable patch. 

The Natick libraries belong to the Minuteman Library Network, a consortium of 40+ public and academic institutions in the area. To get a sense of all the network has to offer, go to the homepage at http://www.mln.lib.ma.us/ and have a look. You can browse through the collection by searching on keywords that are of interest to you, for example:

Bee-keeping and chicken-keeping

Border gardens

Children’s gardens

Composting

Ecological gardening

Growing flowers, herbs, and vegetables

Container gardens, patio gardening, or small-space gardening

Landscape design

Lawns

Low-maintenance gardening

Organic gardening

Pruning

Shrubs

Of course, you can also browse the old-fashioned way, wandering through the stacks of your favorite library in the network. You can also ask a reference librarian for help in finding exactly what you’re looking for.

Magazines

Heading to downtown Natick? Stop into the Morse Institute Library (14 East Central Street) and visit the Periodicals Hall on the second floor. Here, you’ll find a collection of 200+ magazines in the adult collection, including various home and garden titles full of ideas, inspiration, photographs, and practical tips. The library’s subscriptions include:

Better Homes and Gardens

Birds and Blooms

Family Handyman

Fine Gardening

Flower

Good Housekeeping

HGTV Magazine

Horticulture

House Beautiful

Martha Stewart Living

Mother Earth Living

Organic Gardening

Southern Living

This Old House

Victoria

You can read current issues in the library, and check out previous issues with your library card.

Electronic Journals

If you can’t make it to the library, you can still access a world of gardening magazines and journals through the Gardening, Landscape, and Horticulture Collection database. This collection contains more than 3,000,000 articles from 80+ academic and trade journals, magazines, newspapers, and blogs for readers with all levels of interest (from amateur gardeners and homeowners bewildered by their lawns, to landscape designers and horticulturists looking for peer-reviewed articles). Topics range from practical aspects of gardening and landscaping to scientific theory. Go to http://www.mln.lib.ma.us/, choose “databases” under “Research and Information” in the left-hand column, then enter your library card number. You’ll find the Gardening, Landscape, and Horticulture Collection in the alphabetical listing of databases.

Don’t have a library card?

If you don't have a library card, it's easy to get one. (And, it's free.) Visit http://morseinstitute.org/Natick/librarycard.asp for more information or stop by the circulation desk on the main level.

The Morse Institute Library is located at 14 East Central Street in downtown Natick, across the street from Town Hall. The main telephone number is 508-647-6520. The Web address is www.morseinstitute.org.