Green Thumb

I have garden designs in my head. I love pouring through seed catalogs, gardening magazines, and Pinterest, looking at all the lovely plants and imagining them in my yard. While I enjoy reading and dreaming about my garden, I don't actually do much with it. Sadly, I tend to neglect my houseplants and most die of thirst. As for the yard, I tend to let things fend for themselves. Perhaps that's why I enjoy the gardening cozy mystery. I get to think about the garden while others do all the work!

Gardening cozies feature, of course, gardeners. Most are professionals working as landscape designers, florists, or people having other, similar careers. Many of these books also include gardening tips.

Looking for an educated look at plants? Want a unique gardening shop in which to putter around? Check out The Peggy Lee Garden mysteries by Joyce and Jim Lavene. Peggy Lee is a botanist who owns a garden shop in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I love the scent that engulfs you when you enter a florist shop. If you can't make it to your local florist, why not try a fictional one? Kate Collins pens the Flower Shop mysteries. Set in New Chapel, Indiana the series features Abby Knight, owner of Bloomers Florists. Bretta Solomon also owns a flower shop, the Flower Shop, in River City, Missouri in the series by Janis Harrison.

Nina Quinn is a landscape designer with a difference-she does surprise garden makeovers in the Nina Quinn mystery series by Heather Webber.

In Virginia, near Washington DC we find Louise Eldridge, an organic gardener who becomes the host of a PBS gardening show on TV in the series by Ann Ripley. While Louise is close to Washington DC and politics (her husband is a CIA agent) Casey Calhoun is even closer. She's a gardener for the White House in The White House Gardener mysteries by Dorothy St. James.

Garden Clubs are great ways for gardeners to get together. They're also a way to find murderers. Alisa Craig gives us the Grub-and-Stakers series which takes place in Lobelia Falls, Ontario, Canada while Susan Wittig Albert takes us back to the 1930's in Darling, Alabama with the Darling Dahlias.

As outdoor gardening is coming to a close for the season, at least in my part of the world, now is the perfect time to pick up a gardening mystery. I hope you'll give one a try!