Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens, 3rd Edition: The Resource Guide

by Wesley A. Groesbeck and Jan Striefel, ASLA. Environmental Resources, Inc., 2041 E. Hollywood Avenue, Salt Lake City, UT 84108-3148; 801/485-0280. Paperback, 486 pages, $35 postpaid.

This directory is a bare-bones, no-frills production. The 2,100 listings are printed in a plain database output format on recycled newsprint. But the content is thorough and up-to-date, making this an outstanding value for anyone involved with landscaping. Manufacturers, suppliers, and information resources are all listed together throughout the directory. To make room for the expanded listings, the narratives on sustainable landscape design that were contained in the second edition are gone—they will be published as a separate volume later this year.

Listings are organized by CSI category, with a detailed table of contents to help users less familiar with the system. In some areas, too many items occur under the same number for easy reference, so the indexing is important. The index cross-references various product types alphabetically, though it does not offer an easy way to find specific companies or products. As might be expected, Section 2–Sitework is both the longest and most informative section, comprising nearly half the directory.