By Patrick Butters
Scripps Howard News Service
(Maples By Rosemary Barrett. Firefly Books, $16.95.)
What does this say about our obsession with celebrity? I pick up this book, "Maples," with its lovely cover of red leaves so vibrant you can touch them and immediately think, "Why would a tree be on the cover of a book about Marla Maples?"
Besides, Ms. Maples is not even an official celebrity anymore! (Seen her on "Oprah" lately?) After all, Miss Marla is Donald Trump's ex-wife.
Besides, and no offense to The Mother of The Donald's child, this book is much more interesting. Because Maples is about things that will long after we all become food for worms. This isn't just about admiring maple trees - this is about growing them.
The owner of a nursery, Rosemary Barrett has a natural enthusiasm for maples, yet her writing is in a soft, genteel manner. She often presents facts, such as the Japanese maple coming from China, with a polite, "I understand" instead of, "Guess what I know?" This reflects a certain serenity one wishes to get from gardening.
Barrett's praise of the trees is indeed inspiring, but so is her urge to the readers that if you plant it, it will grow. She enjoys knowing that a tree will "flourish after the gardener has gone to the great arboretum in the sky."
Yet Barrett admits to an ugly truth. While planting a maple can be very easy, keeping up with all of the details can throw you: finding the right location, knowing when to do it, taking care of pruning, and pure propagation. But the fun of it, gushes Barrett, sometimes is the difficulty.
So even if you just want to sit back and admire the hundreds of varieties of maples, the book is still worth a look. Once you flip through the pages, and look at all Derek Hughes' misty photos bursting with oranges, reds, greens and yellows, you can easily delude yourself into thinking you can plant a maple tomorrow, even if it's in a nice big pot in the backyard. And with Barrett's help, it may be no delusion at all.
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