This 287-page stunner by acclaimed garden writer Ken Druse is what you need to get to spring and back into your own garden.

Druse shows us botanical marvels and introduces us to plant explorers who face danger searching for rare and exotic specimens, all in the name of preserving threatened species.

Filled with facts, punctured myths and practical wisdom, this gloriously illustrated book celebrates the secret stories of plants and explains their role in daily life, now and since ancient times.

For example, plant petunias if you like sitting on your patio after dark. Why? Because they are evening fragrant - their pollinators only come out at night.

And have you ever noticed the beautiful spiraling patterns on sunflower heads? Druse says all plants feature such spirals, and that they correspond exactly to mathematical principles that captivated history’s great thinkers and artists.

Margaret Roach of A Way to Garden reviews the book here.

To win this copy, simply leave a comment below before Feb. 2 telling us a little about your gardening fantasies. The winner’s name will be picked at random. Because of shipping costs, you must live in Canada or the United States. Sorry Bora Bora.

The Winner: Congratulations Mr. Tumnas: Please contact us with your address so we can send you this beautiful book.

Three sisters who own and manage wild bird specialty stores use their decades of experience to show you how to make your backyard a bird oasis.

Through their book, Anne Schmauss, Mary Schmauss and Geni Krolick explain what birds are looking for in terms of food, water, habitat and nesting every month of the year.

In 224 colorful pages, these three bird experts share their time-tested tips and tricks for attracting the most interesting variety of birds to your backyard.

To enter, leave a comment below about what birds are in your backyard now, what you enjoy about birds or a vexing problem you have in attracting and feeding birds. Winner will be chosen at random Feb. 28th. Because of shipping costs, you must live in North America. Sorry Timbuktu.

This hefty 382-page book has plenty of recipes, but we like it best for the hundreds of glorious photos of Mario Batali, Gwyneth Paltrow, New York Times write Mark Bittman and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols.

The photos show an ultimate road trip between four friends who eat and laugh their way through the exquisite culinary of Spain — much of it cooked in rustic sheds and over open grills in the countryside.

We’ll send the winner the book AND the DVDs this foursome did about their trip for Public Television. To enter a random drawing for the book and DVDs, leave your comment on this post. Deadline to enter is Jan. 22, 2009. (Because of postage costs, we ship only to contestants in North America. Sorry Liechtenstein.)

Our Winner: Linda Eskin. Congratulations Linda!