Board Game & Book Pairings: Gardens of harmony, gardens of discord!

01 Apr Board Game & Book Pairings: Gardens of harmony, gardens of discord!

It’s time for PGTPL’s Bloom and Grow gardening program series, and we have a board game and book pairing to set the scene. After you’ve checked out Village Green and Garden Wonderland, drop by the library for tips and resources to start your own garden!

• April 1: Container Gardening (6-7p in the West Meeting Room)
• April 10: Painted Garden Markers (6-7p in the West Meeting Room)
• April 12: Plant Sale (11a-3p on the sidewalk outside PGTPL)
• April 12: Get Gardening! (12-2p in McMillan B)
• April 23: Native Landscaping (6-7p in McMillan B)

• Board Game: Village Green: A Game of Pretty Gardens and Petty Grudges
  

  

   – Building your dream garden can be a relaxing, stress-free activity – but only if the contest judges acknowledge your village green’s superiority, of course! Use your resources wisely and craft a beautiful green space to crush your neighbors’ dreams!

  • Players: 1-5
  • Playing time: 30 minutes
  • Age: 14+
  • From Boardgamegeek: “It’s the first day of spring, and there’s only one thing on everyone’s mind: the Village Green of the Year competition! In just a few months, the judges of this prestigious contest will be visiting, and the village council has finally put you in charge of the preparations. With your newfound authority, you can show those snobs from Lower Aynesmore just what a properly orchestrated floral arrangement looks like!
    “In Village Green, you are rival gardeners tasked by your respective communities with arranging flowers, planting trees, commissioning statues, and building ponds. You must place each element carefully as time is tight and the stakes couldn’t be higher! Split your days between acquiring and installing new features for your green and nominating it for one of the competition’s many awards. Will your village green become the local laughing stock, or will it make the neighboring villages green with envy?” (description via https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/300583/village-green)

• Book: Garden Wonderland: Creating Life-Changing Outdoor Spaces for Beauty, Harvest, Meaning, and Joy by Leslie Bennett and Julie Chai

• – Whether your goal is to grow all of your own fruits and vegetables or to create a backyard retreat, this book is an excellent resource. Bennett and Chai combine practical advice on plant choice and layout with beautiful photographs of gardens to inspire your planning. Anecdotes about the development of nineteen real-world gardens help to illustrate how your needs, desires, and personality can translate into meaningful design choices.
  • From the publisher: “A visual feast of garden design inspiration that embraces diversity and teaches you how to create a lush, colorful, edible, and meaningful garden wonderland of your own.
    “Featuring practical how-to information alongside examples from nineteen gardens, Bennett shows how to incorporate personal and edible elements into the landscape to honor other cultures while including families of all shapes and sizes, to create space that nurtures self, community, and more.
    “With chapters on floral, edible, gathering, healing, and cultural wonderlands, Bennett provides advice for tailoring a garden to your own needs, whether it’s a place to host elegant garden parties, for children to play, to grow your own food and creativity, or a sanctuary to rest and relax. In Garden Wonderland, Bennett helps you unlock the potential of your garden to become a space of inspiring natural beauty, abundance, connection, and belonging.” (description via https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/708807/garden-wonderland-by-leslie-bennett-and-julie-chai/)

Bonus: Some plants need more care and attention than others. Check out the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors to see if Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene can keep up with the nutritional needs of Audrey II!