Beacon Hill Garden Club's Fifth Book Part Showcase, Part Primer

For the Beacon Hill Garden Club's fifth book, to be released this May, writers not only showcased some of the city's most beautiful private gardens, as they've done in previous editions, but took the opportunity to turn the book into more of how-to manual in carving out personal green space in an urban environment.

"The current book is more solutions-oriented," Amy Wilson, the club's communications officer, said of the fifth incarnation of Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill.

In the 11 years since the last edition was published, "urban gardening as really taken root," she said, adding that the new book – subtitled "Creating Green Spaces in Urban Places" – is more practical than past editions and, she hopes, aspirational.

"It is a primer for all urban gardeners who want to learn more about how character, walls, paving, levels, gates and doors, ornaments, furniture, light, color and plants can elevate any outdoor space into an urban oasis," Wilson wrote in a press release announcing the book's publication.  

And Beacon Hill, with its tight quarters and low-lit corners, is the perfect lab for testing challenging urban gardening conditions. "The restraints on Beacon Hill force you to be super-creative," Wilson said.

The book took three years to make, includes 111 color photographs of club members' gardens and will be available at the Hidden Gardens tour on May 16 for $35. For the first printing, the club ordered 6,000 copies. The last edition sold 10,000 over about a decade. 

The book sales and proceeds from the tour have been the club's main fundraising engines, allowing it to donate more than $1 million in its 85-year history to more than 200 local, state and national horticultural and conservation organizations. 

For more information on this year's tour, which will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 16 and cost $35 in advance or $40 on tour day, visit www.beaconhillgardenclub.org.