Dog Bites

Just as the pope derives his authority from God, so the Garden Book derives its authority from Sunset magazine. Sunset, one of the oldest magazines in the "shelter book" category, tellingly styles itself "The Magazine of Western Living," and has, since 1928, guided its readership -- now 6 million strong -- to the best weekend getaways, taught it to make the tastiest roast chicken, showed it the floor plans of the ideal western home, and, of course, suggested the best plants for landscaping around a swimming pool.

We once read that the content of shelter books may be divided into two categories: aspirational and inspirational -- asp or insp for short, and to further disguise the fact that insp really means middle class. Asp titles are for readers who enjoy vicariously swooning onto the Aubusson rugs of the rich and famous; the World of Interiors, or Architectural Digest, for example, are asp. The decade-old Martha Stewart Living is both insp and asp, but mostly asp; in its pages, the tops of $14,000 Federal side tables are crowded with homemade Valentine's cards.

Sunset is insp.

In other words, we shouldn't have been stunned to find that the Sunset publishing empire's headquarters look exactly like an overgrown 1950s ranch house. The resemblance is not accidental; the entire spread, explained Brenzel, was designed in the early 1950s -- when Sunset magazine moved from Montgomery Street to Menlo Park -- "to be a laboratory of western living." The entry looks like a larger version of a private home's front door; the terra-cotta-tiled lobby, apart from a reception desk, looks like a living room, with couches and chairs arrayed on an area rug. Bookcases hold an array of Sunset publishing titles -- these run from the New Easy Basics Cookbook to Garden Style Decorating -- while on the far side of the lobby a set of sliding glass doors opens onto a patio and a huge expanse of lawn and garden. The wrought-iron chairs on the patio are overscaled to match the size of the "house," as are the table lamps next to them, causing the suggestible Dog Bites to experience the momentary sensation that we'd shrunk to near-child-size; we half expected to see Mr. Cleaver barbecuing outside, or Mrs. Brady appearing with a plate of Sour Cream Softies, a cookie that was an after-school favorite in Dog Bites' childhood home, and -- not at all coincidentally -- a Sunset magazine recipe.

Much of the popularity the Garden Book doesn't owe to Sunset magazine it owes to having created its very own climate zone system, which can be used to predict with enviable accuracy whether, say, a gold-band lily will bloom in Denver (yes), or whether a silverbell tree will thrive in Santa Monica (no). Gardeners in other parts of the country are stuck with the much less specific U.S. Department of Agriculture's Hardiness Zone map; the USDA system recognizes only 11 national zones, which form broad continentwide bands marked off in 10-degree increments of average minimum temperature. As Brenzel pointed out, "That puts Yuma, Arizona, in the same zone as parts of the Washington state rain forest."

Sunset's system, by comparison, recognizes 24 climate zones west of the Rockies alone. Driving from San Francisco to Menlo Park, a distance of only 35 or so miles down 280, we passed from Zone 17 ("Marine Effects in Southern Oregon, Northern and Central California") to Zone 15 ("Chilly Winters Along the Coast Range"); in practical terms this means the famed Sunset Test Garden -- which we toured! -- can grow citrus fruits and other plants that need summer warmth, while Dog Bites' cooler and foggier garden in the city can't. The USDA system lumps both into its Zone 9.

This update of the Garden Book took just over a year to put together, though it's much larger than the previous one, which was published in 1995. Planning began last September; there was a significant amount of groundwork (no pun intended), like sending out surveys to growers and nurseries to see who's growing and selling what where, that had to be done before the actual writing could begin in February. How many writers worked on the book? "Oh my," said Brenzel. "I wouldn't even want to guess."

Though there's already probably at least one slightly muddy copy of the Garden Book in every garden center in the west, Brenzel is touring garden shows, promoting the new edition at the beginning of the big spring planting season. Already sick with envy, we learned she'd just come back from the big Northwest Garden Show in Seattle with a wonderful new named variety of Phalaenopsis. The crowds aren't tough, either. "They're all so happy," said Brenzel. "Gardeners are happy people."