Trees and shrubs bring permanence and structure to home landscapes, adding character and beauty to the entire property. They can impart an immediate sense of geography; act as background staging for flower gardens, outdoor living spaces, and children's play areas; and provide cool shadows and privacy from neighbors and passers-by. They are essential to every beautiful yard, yet many homeowners do not give them the attention that flowers and lawns traditionally receive.
Penny O'Sullivan gives trees and shrubs the respect they deserve in her lively, comprehensive book, "The Homeowner's Complete Tree & Shrub Handbook." Woody plants, she maintains, can be the heart and soul of the home landscape plan. Their contribution to the yard might include a springtime canopy of blossoms; colorful, delicious summer fruit; a regal year-round silhouette; rough and rugged bark; or seasonally changing foliage. Their presence is a soothing anchor in the ever-changing environment of a typical yard.
In three sections -- design, plant profiles, and care -- this handbook covers every essential consideration of tree and shrub gardening. After an introduction to the principles of garden design, O'Sullivan guides readers through tree and shrub selection, with special considerations for owner expectations and growing conditions.
The heart of the book is the extensive encyclopedia of hundreds of tree and shrub portraits. Each profile covers ease of cultivation, availability, history, hardiness, size, growth rate, and special characteristics. O'Sullivan also includes warnings about plants not to grow, such as invasive exotics and disease-prone trees and shrubs.
The final section covers care and maintenance, with thorough advice on buying and planting; siting; pruning; fertilizing; and coping with diseases, pests, and environmental problems.
Adding trees and shrubs to a home landscape can be an expensive proposition. To make their purchases and protect their investment, homeowners will constantly refer to this book for O'Sullivan's wise advice.

Learn how to grow and dry flowers, plants and herbs to createdried floral arrangements that will breathe fresh life and style into your home without breaking the bank!In this contemporary reimagining of a timeless craft, Ann Lindsay Mitchell guides you through the method of drying flowers in three achievable steps: growing, drying and arranging. This excellent source of practical advice is explored through an encyclopaedic list of flowers and foliage with specific information on how to grow, cut and dry them to best effect. From coffee table posies and large arrangements to hand tied-gift bunches and wedding bouquets, beautiful photography accompanies guidance to creating arrangements with your newly dried flowers. Filled with delicate watercolour illustrations alongside stunning photography of both simple and elaborate floral arrangements, Forever Flowers is an exceptional guide to growing, drying and arranging. Suitable for both experienced professionals and hopeful newcomers to the art of drying flowers, the information in the book is an invaluable resource for all to reference and return to. Anyone can create everlasting arrangements for friends, home or occasions that can be cherished for years to come.

Foliage plays a key part in garden design. The colour, and therefore the effect, of the plant is determined by its foliage all the time it is in leaf, whereas the flowers may last only a few days. Choosing plants for different kinds of foliage effects can mean year-round interest in the garden. This book describes the range of colour and leaf shape available, provides a detailed plant list organized by colour, recommends planting positions and gives a list of nurseries.

We are a nation of gardeners, and we take pleasure in tending our backyards. But this pleasure sits uneasily with our knowledge that the places where most of us live are running out of water. We suspect that our lawns and many of our plants from the damp climates of northern European gardens are too demanding of scarce supplies, but can't imagine our streets and gardens without them. The Old Country opens our eyes, and minds, to other possibilities. It does so by telling us stories about our natural landscape. George Seddon believes that the better we understand the delicacy and beauty of our natural environment, the more 'at home' we will feel as Australians. This passionate, wise and witty book, enriched with breathtakingly beautiful illustrations, suggests that the answers to our water problems lie here, at home.

The Low-Tech, No-Grow-Lights Approach to Abundant Harvest Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening offers good news: with nothing more than a cupboard and a windowsill, you can grow all the fresh salad greens you need for the winter months (or throughout the entire year) with no lights, no pumps, and no greenhouse. Longtime gardener Peter Burke was tired of the growing season ending with the first frost, but due to his busy work schedule and family life, didn't have the time or interest in high-input grow lights or greenhouses. Most techniques for growing what are commonly referred to as "microgreens" left him feeling overwhelmed and uninterested. There had to be a simpler way to grow greens for his family indoors. After some research and diligent experimenting, Burke discovered he was right-there was a way! And it was even easier than he ever could have hoped, and the greens more nutrient packed. He didn't even need a south-facing window, and he already had most of the needed supplies just sitting in his pantry. The result: healthy, homegrown salad greens at a fraction of the cost of buying them at the market. The secret: start them in the dark. Growing "Soil Sprouts"-Burke's own descriptive term for sprouted seeds grown in soil as opposed to in jars-employs a method that encourages a long stem without expansive roots, and provides delicious salad greens in just seven to ten days, way earlier than any other method, with much less work. Indeed, of all the ways to grow immature greens, this is the easiest and most productive technique. Forget about grow lights and heat lamps! This book is a revolutionary and inviting guide for both first-time and experienced gardeners in rural or urban environments. All you need is a windowsill or two. In fact, Burke has grown up to six pounds of greens per day using just the windowsills in his kitchen! Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening offers detailed step-by-step instructions to mastering this method (hint: it's impossible not to succeed, it's so easy!), tools and accessories to have on hand, seeds and greens varieties, soil and compost, trays and planters, shelving, harvest and storage, recipes, scaling up to serve local markets, and much more.

From spring green to winter gold, the drama of grasses is nonstop. There are the striking yellow-and-green ostrich plumes of Zebra Grass. The fine-textured leaves of Blue Oat Grass. Flame Grass's dazzling red-orange leaves, Fountain Grass's coppery brushes, the rich brown nuggets of Northern Sea Oats, the feathery purple haze of Switch Grass.

Whether on their own or as backdrops for colorful garden flowers, ornamental grasses are admired for their color, form, movement, and texture. They also aid in erosion control, soil stabilization, and water retention, making them great conservation tools for gardeners in all hardiness zones. Although grasses are widely available at garden centers all over North America, few books advise the gardener on how to use them in the garden - and especially how to combine them with perennials and other plants. GRASSES features plans and practical advice for more than 24 unique gardens. It's complete with an identification and growing guide to the plants, and it features more than 150 full-color photographs, illustrations, and landscape plans.

This is an illustrated guide to varieties, cultivation and care, with step-by-step instructions and over 150 inspiring photographs. It is a full photographic directory of over 50 varieties of ivy, such as 'Ambrosia', 'Buttercup', 'Goldheart', 'Kolibri', 'Merion Beauty', 'Romanze' and 'Silver King'. For each variety, full botanical information is provided on leaf characteristics, growth, spread and size. It offers practical step-by-step photographic guidance on cultivating and caring for ivies, including training tree ivies, making topiary shapes, planting hanging baskets and window boxes, and propagating ivies with cuttings. Ivy has an ancient history and has been used for decorative, symbolic and medicinal purposes. Hardy and versatile, it will often prosper where other plants fail. The wide range of leaf shapes, types of variegation, shades of green and ability to climb and trail make it ideal for any garden. This book shows how ivy can be used for a multitude of gardening purposes, from providing excellent ground and wall cover to being trained into topiary shapes and used in containers.A fully illustrated directory covers 50 beautiful varieties within the Hedera genus, each demonstrating the understated charm of this hardy and accommodating plant.

This book presents a directory of varieties and how to cultivate them successfully. It is an illustrated gardener's guide to the different varieties of shoots, peas and beans, their history and cooking uses. It includes step-by-step instructions for preparing the soil, sowing under glass, and harvesting and storing. It offers practical advice on cultivating asparagus, celery, celeriac, globe artichokes, rhubarb, seakale, peas, runner beans, French (green) beans and broad beans. It includes helpful hints on how to avoid pests and diseases, and what to do when problems occur. Shoots, peas and beans are some of the choicest and most delicious of the many vegetable crops available to the kitchen gardener. In this book, the main types are described and illustrated, with useful information about the varieties that can be grown, their history, cultivation requirements and cooking uses. There is key advice on improving your soil, making compost and preparing the vegetable bed. A section on practical cultivation explains how to grow and care for each type of vegetable, from sowing to harvest.A must for the novice grower, the book also provides information for the experienced gardener who wants to experiment with new varieties.

Acadia Tucker's long love affair with perennial foods has produced this easy-to-understand guide to growing, harvesting, and eating them. A regenerative farmer and gardener deeply concerned about global warming, Acadia Tucker believes there may be no better time to plant perennials. Sturdy and deep-rooted, perennials can weather climate extremes more easily than annuals. They can thrive without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. And they don't need as much water, either. These long-lived plants also help build healthy soil, turning the very ground we stand on into a carbon sponge. In this book, Tucker lays the groundwork for tending an organic, sustainable garden. She includes practical growing guides for 34 popular perennials, among them, basil, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, artichokes, asparagus, garlic, radicchio, spinach, and sweet potatoes, and wraps in a recipe for each of the plants profiled. Growing Perennial Foods is for gardeners who want more resilient plants. It's for people who want to do something about climate change, and the environment. It's for anyone who has ever wanted to grow food, and is ready to begin.

Stinging nettles are, for many of us, nothing more than persistent weeds with a painful sting. But apart from having an important role in the web of life, nettles are an incredibly useful plant to mankind. They have been put to myriad uses by our ancestors, and many of these are still valid today. Already stinging nettle products are growing in popularity in the field of alternative medicine, as their wide range of health benefits becomes better known. This unique book explores the diverse uses of this fascinating plant - in the garden and the kitchen, for their medical and fibrous properties and so on. It is packed with practical suggestions, as well as a guide to the botany of stinging nettles, and how to collect and store them. For example, you will discover how to use nettles to: make a liquid plant fertiliser brew an unusual beer make a dandruff treatment protect beehives flavour an omelette make friendship bracelets repel flies naturally make green or yellow fabric dyes keep yourself warm in the winter and much more ... The many health benefits of taking nettles in various forms include relief from: hay fever and other allergies; acne and other skin conditions; arthritis and rheumatism; asthma; stress; high blood pressure; depression; enlarged prostate gland. The book also features Digital Nettle Art

A guide to the care and cultivation of dahlias for the home gardener or exhibitor

This is an illustrated guide to varieties, cultivation and care, with step-by-step instructions and over 160 beautiful photographs. It includes a photographic directory of over 60 varieties, including basil, borage, catmint, chives, fennel, lavender, marjoram, mint, parsley, rosemary, sage and thyme. For each variety, there is full botanical information on growth, height, spread, size and flowering, as well as practical advice on creating your own herb garden. It includes step-by-step guidance on growing and caring for herbs, including buying, planting indoors and outside, growing in containers, harvesting, taking cuttings and sowing seed. Herbs have always played an important role in everyday life, both for seasoning food and for restoring good health. Growing your own allows you to explore the great beauty and usefulness of herbs, from humble parsley to stately angelica. This pretty handbook looks at the fascinating history of herbs and their medicinal uses, and shows how they can add scent and beauty to any garden. Over 60 varieties are described and illustrated, together with advice on how to care for them. Whether you grow a small window box of purple basil and golden sage, or plan your own intricate herb knot garden, the flowers and foliage will bring pleasure to every gardener.

Create your own herbal teas -- from tiller to teapot!

Teas to soothe, teas to relieve, teas to rejuvenate -- Herbal Tea Gardens contains everything you need to know to grow, blend, and brew healthful and delicious herbal teas.

You'll find more than 100 tea recipes such as Flu Brew, Double Green Digestive, and Women's Energizing Tonic, as well as 22 illustrated garden plans to help you customize your tea garden to suit your health needs and environment including:

-- Headache Relief Garden

-- Relaxation Garden

-- First-Aid Garden

-- Cough, Cold, and Flu Garden

-- Arthritis Care Garden

-- Shade Garden

“Organic Herb Gardening: The Beginners Guide to Planning, Growing, and Preserving Your Own Culinary and Medicinal Herbs” gives you the opportunity to bring the flavors of the globe to your table while preserving the peace of mind that comes from growing things yourself. This guide will give you the basic foundation you need to design the perfect organic herb garden for your needs, your space, and your individual tastes.

With the information provided in this guide, you will be able to fill your menu with meals featuring garden-fresh herbs and your pantry and freezer with home-grown herbs to use throughout the year.

You will learn:

• The basics of organic gardening, and why it’s important for your herb garden

• How to plan out your herb garden, there are tons of different ways to go but convenience is one of the biggest factors

• Several common herb garden design layouts, from medicine wheel gardens to potagers you’ll have plenty of “food for thought”

• How to use containers and companion planting in your herb garden, this is especially important if you are dealing with limited space

• Tips for growing the most common kitchen garden herbs

• Culinary and medicinal uses for those common herbs

• How to preserve your fresh herbs for use throughout the year

This guide provides you with the foundation you need to plan and design a beautiful, productive organic herb garden.

"Lasagna Gardening With Herbs"
Lasagna gardening is sweeping the nation, as more and more gardeners discover this simple, sensible method of creating healthy soil for easy-care gardens. Pat Lanza's organic, commonsense approach takes the backbreaking labor out of preparing and planting an aromatic, delicious, and low-maintenance herb garden. Discover Pat's homegrown methods for using more than 50 favorite herbs in recipes, making herbal wreaths and delicious herbal teas, and growing and using edible flowers.
"From the first paragraph of "Lasagna Gardening with Herbs" to the last, I felt as though I had finally found my soil sister. Pat Lanza writes and gardens with knowledge, passion, and a pioneer spirit. Her easy-to-implement tips, combined with her encyclopedic wisdom about plants and soil, make her book indispensable to both beginning and advanced gardeners."--Sharon Lovejoy, contributing editor of "Country Living Gardener," a "New York Times" syndicated contributor, and author of numerous books, including "Trowel & Error"
"If Pat Lanza sometimes has dirty fingernails, it's because she's a writer with the hands-on, dig-in-the-dirt passion of a gardener. When she writes about gardening methods, you know she's tried them. And with her discovery of lasagna gardening, she's managed to make it easier for all of us."--Walter Chandoha, animal and garden photographer and author and illustrator of more than 25 books, including "The Literary Gardener"
"Pat Lanza is the only one I know who turns the world upside down when she gardens. She starts with the basics-- dirt first! Her philosophy is that if you do it right from the garden up and make it fun and easy, the garden willdo the rest."--Jim Long, columnist for" The Herb Companion" and" The Herb Quarterly" magazines and author of books on herbs and history
"Pat Lanza is a true renaissance woman, always inventing new ways to tackle old tasks. One day she decided to try her lasagna method of soil improvement with herbs. Did it work? Of course! Her small garden produced prodigious harvests of delicious aromatic herbs! "Carpe diem"!"--Jim W. Wilson, horticulturist and author of numerous books, including "Jim Wilson's Container Gardening"
"About the Author"
Patricia Lanza is a lifelong gardener, a popular speaker, and the proprietor of the Potager, a garden gift shop and cafe in Wurtsboro, New York. Her first book about her time-saving garden methods," Lasagna Gardening," won the prestigious Quill and Trowel Award from the Garden Writers Association of America.

From the visual variety of foliage to the wide range of artfully designed pots and planters, keeping houseplants is an addictive hobby that's enjoying a renaissance in popularity. In Plant Inspiration Frame-Ups, 50 beautifully illustrated affirmation cards derive wisdom from the world of indoor plants, with each card featuring clever plant-art interpretations of classic phrases. "Don't be afraid to take up space" is juxtaposed with a monstrous monstera plant engulfing a living room; "Take a moment to breathe" features a collection of air plants suspended in hanging planters; and "Create something" comes alive with an illustration of a spider plant sprouting many pups. Bright, whimsical, and uplifting, these cards call out to be displayed, and the Frame-Ups format makes it easy to do just that. With a pull-out tabletop frame included, you don't need to have a green thumb to display your favorite saying or swap it out for another whenever you need fresh perspective.

Like the idea of growing your own fruit, veg and herbs but don't have the room or energy? "Crops in Pots" is a user-friendly guide to getting a taste of self-sufficiency, growing wherever you can grab the space - whether it be your patio, balcony or window sill. Apart from the many joys of growing your own food, the benefits of container gardening are manifold: accessibility, portability, soil choice, easier pest and disease control...Find out how to get started and choose your pots, how to grow and harvest - including the most appropriate crops for small spaces, how to deal with problems and lots of great tips on how to be successful on a shoestring.

Not too long ago, it might have seemed impossible that cannabis would step out of the shadows into the mainstream. But now, as legalization sweeps the globe, a new weed culture is evolving with its own set of rules-and thousands of new devotees eager to learn them. Journalist Michelle Lhooq lives in Los Angeles and is at the forefront of this revolution. Through her own expertise as well as interviews with stars from the weed scene, she presents a captivating glimpse into the wild new frontier of cannabis. This witty, insightful guidebook offers useful tips on how to smoke joints, vapes, and concentrates; make edibles and infused cocktails; grow the plant at home; and find the best cannabis stores. It imparts the wisdom of renowned potheads such as pioneering dub music producer Lee "Scratch" Perry and includes interviews with the cannabis industry's most exciting and innovative figures, from a lauded chef who puts on a gourmet weed dinner series, to the editors of a weed-centric magazine, to a "cannasexual" sex educator, and more. Complete with vibrant new hand-drawn illustrations by the artist Thu Tran, Weed is cutting-edge, comprehensive, and brimming with sparkling personalities-an essential introduction to pot for both newbies and die-hards alike.

"Heritage Apples" travels far beyond the grocery store of today to savor the apples of the past. These are the apple varieties--the Gravensteins, the Kings, the red-fleshed Pink Pearl--that link us to history, but through food movements and taste preferences are remerging as the fruit of the future. Heritage apples evoke memories and passion for some; for others they offer delicious, unexplored flavors and a connection to local farmers.Discover the histories behind the apples, and learn some startling apple facts. Identify the taste, appearance, and uses of 40 different heritage varieties and gain useful growing and harvesting information. Meet apple growers, cider-makers, and people fighting to preserve heritage apples, and join a lifestyle that embraces local and slow food movements. Then try the recipes Create delicious apple-based dishes, such as Chickpea-Apple Curry, French Apple Clafouti, Tarte Tatin, Apple Brownies, Apple Pie, and more. Expand your knowledge of one of our most popular fruits and celebrate its history with "Heritage Apples."