Lewis and Nancy Hill,
Authors, & Vermont Residents

Lewis Hill started Hillcrest Nursery in Greensboro in the late 1940s, growing and selling a wide assortment of plants and trees. His wife, Nancy, joined the firm in the late 60s. Sometime later they sold the business and started Vermont Daylilies, growing over 500 different cultivars selling the plants all over New England. They have developed the introduced nine new cultivars of daylilies. Meantime they experimented with testing and hybridizing small fruits and in 1992 sold the daylily business and stated BerryHill Nursery, raising berry plants for sale. They now have over 80 kinds gathered from around the world, and have developed and introduced two hybrid currants and two hybrid elderberries.

During the long Vermont winters they write, and have just finished their fifteenth book. In addition, they have contributed portions of seven other American and Canadian books including the New Wise Garden Encyclopedia, and the Organic Gardening Encyclopedia and have written hundreds of articles for numerous magazines. They are members of several plant societies, and the League of Vermont Writers and have received many awards for their community, literary, and horticultural achievements.

Topics covered include:

• Grow and enjoy both common and unusual bulbs
• Combine bulbs, perennials, and annuals for nonstop color
• Carpet lawns and shaded areas with naturalized bulbs
• Plant and nourish healthy bulbs, corms, and tubers
• Care for plants after blooming
• Avoid, or combat, insect pests and diseases
• Force bulbs for indoor enjoyment

• Recommendations about new, improved fruit cultivars
• Effective and environmentally sound advice on how to fertilize plantings and control pests and diseases
• complete information about what fruit to grow and where
• Recommendations on improving the soil, planting, pruning, thinning, and other year-round maintenance
• Suggestions for harvesting, preserving, and storage

Hill, an experienced and skill tree grower himself, begins with the very basics, providing valuable insights on how to choose the best land and the best species of trees to grow on that land.

Here you will learn how to:

• Plan for continuous, efficient growth, including interplanting,
  natural seeding, and stump culture
• Care for your crop throughout the growing cycle, from planing
  and pruning, right through harvesting
• Propagate your own plants and collect wild seedlings
• Select the proper equipment for the nature and scope of your planting
• Handle problems dealt by weather, pests and diseases, and animals
• Find wholesale and retail markets, maintain a steady supply,
  deal with tree buyers, advertise and price, and
  maintain records and plan for taxes

This is a user-friendly guide to the challenges and joys of perennial gardening--less than a botanical encyclopedia, but much more than a volume of garden or species descriptions. The authors' approach will resolve the quandaries of those new to perennials as well as meet the needs of the sophisticated horticulturist.

Everything is here:

• a complete section on perennial care and cultivation
• 16 theme gardens
• more than 150 species descriptions
• full-color photographs
• species illustrations
• a glossary of gardening terms

Cold-Climate Gardening has much information that will prove invaluable to northern gardeners: how to grow food, how to landscape, techniques to employ that will protect vulnerable planting, how to warm up the soil earlier, and which species are appropriate to your area. Not just for those who live in the snow belt, this book will also be useful to those who garden in microclimates (such as deep valleys or hillsides) or for those who want to extend their gardening season in any climate. Horticulture has deemed it "an immensely useful book,...written with style, wit and clarity...." You will garner advice, tips, guidance, and encouragement necessary to have a successful gardening season in spite of Mother Nature's ravages.

The book features:

• More than 100 clear, easy-to-follow illustrations
• An overview of pruning methods
• A chapter for each tree category--ornamental, fruit, shade, evergreen, and nut
• A guide to pruning tools and equipment, including safety tips

Here are just a few of the results you can expect from appling the methods taught in his imformative book:

• Raise the best tomato plants
• Grow your own Christmas trees
• Offer the finest of gifts--houseplants
• Avoid buying expensive shrubs; start your own
• Plant those hard-to -find flowers, perennials and annuals, at little or no cost