Each year, the American Horticultural Society honors the best gardening-related books published in North America. As in 2024, I was asked to serve as a judge on the committee to review nominations and determine the outstanding books. This is a hard job. I know it sounds glamorous, reading 3 dozen gardening books and talking about them with a panel of gardening experts. It was fun, my brain expanded and I learned so much. But it’s challenging, too, to pick the best out of an exceptional selection of the best gardening books published last year.
The AHS Book Awards are unique in that they recognize design in the evaluation. Book design, from paper selection to cover art, photography and all the organizational design elements in between, brings life to the authors’ words.
Here, then are the winners, announced this week by the American Horticultural Society.
AHS Book Awards Winners 2025
Three winners of the 2025 AHS Book awards:
* Plants for the Winter Garden by Warren Leach (Timber Press)
* The Ultimate Guide to Houseplant Propagation by Lindsay Sisti (Cool Springs Press)
* The Gardener’s Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes Region by Rick Gray and Shaun Booth (Firefly)
Honorable Mention:
* The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger (Harper)
Again, I’m honored to serve as a judge for the AHS Book Awards. Congratulations to the authors, designers and publishers. It was a pleasure to read these books.
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