There have been poems about gardens for as long as there have been gardens. Gardens have been all things to all men and women: paradoxical sites of pleasure and pain, of safety and danger, art and nature, public spaces and private retreats, places of physical labour and metaphysical reflection. This diversity and versatility have always attracted poets, whose repertory of garden themes on the page matches what garden makers have achieved on the ground.

In this anthology successive historical periods of gardening - from enclosed garden and landscape park to Victorian flower-garden and modern patio - are mirrored in verse from the Middle Ages to the present day. While poets have eagerly seized upon the metaphorical associations gardens inspire, they have also been attracted to the opportunities they offer for description, both romantic and robust. As well as being microcosms of society, either perfectly maintained or ill-kempt and overrun, where love can blossom alongside the flowers, or withering and decay may presage death, they are sites of real human labour. The gardener is here celebrated as much as his creation, as are his mundane tasks of weeding and making compost, mowing lawns and tending the allotment.

In his Introduction John Dixon Hunt identifies certain themes that recur throughout a selection that ranges from Chaucer to Pope, Marvell to Tennyson, Coleridge to Fleur Adcock, W. B. Yeats to Anthony Hecht, and Rudyard Kipling to Anne Sexton. Particularly fertile in modern examples, this anthology is a riot of literary talent to match the most abundant of gardens.

Cut trees and plants at the right time - this pruning and plant training guide will show you how. Keep your garden in top shape with RHS's guide to pruning over 800 plants, shrubs, fruit bushes, ornamental trees, and climbing plants. RHS Pruning and Training (Revised Edition), is packed with tips and advice on keeping your plants neat, tidy, and growing. Inside you will find: - Comprehensive guidance for pruning and training over 800 plants - Clear artworks and step-by-step photographs to guide horticultural experts and gardening novices alike - A practical A-Z approach, organised by plant type, displays detailed information in an easy-to-use format - Guides to specialised techniques for each plant type, such as renovation pruning, pollarding, fruit bush training, topiary, and pinch pruning. Gardening design is so much more than aesthetic! Knowing how to prune and shape plants correctly will help you achieve the best displays of flowers, produce bumper crops of fruit, and help your plants remain disease-free. Learn how to understand how different trees change through the seasons and the best way and time to cut them, apply best-practice techniques to different species, and gain expert insight into gardening a variety of plants. Detailed instructions and illustrations allow novice and amateur-expert gardeners to prune and train their gardens with confidence. Author Christopher Brickel has ensured that this gardening book is an excellent quick reference guide and simple step-by-step instruction manual with illustrations to demonstrate precisely where, how, and when to make those crucial cuts.

No image of the Mediterranean is complete without flowering climbers covering the walls, brilliant oleanders lining the roads and colourful shrubs in gardens. However, such plants can now be enjoyed far beyond the Mediterranean. With sections on both general care and specific plants, Garden Plants for the Mediterranean Climates will help you choose and grow the most attractive and colourful plants associated with the region, and to create a beautiful garden suited to your needs. It gives an introduction to the Mediterranean climate and points to consider when planning a garden and also covers advice on watering and soil care. Hallmarks of a Mediterranean garden including palms, pots and containers, climbing plants and pergolas, as well as ideas on which plant to use where are discussed. There is an A-Z of over 1,000 plants supported by 500 colour photographs. New in paperback for 2006. Foreword by Hugh Johnson.

For those without the time or stamina to spend hours maintaining a garden, well-known experts Alan and Gill Bridgewater offer an easy-care method with minimal digging and weeding. They show how to make raised beds, build up soil with mushroom compost, cover weeds with mulch, and protect plants with nets and plastic--all using organic methods whenever possible. A must for every gardener.

Featuring over 40 cool, high-maintenance-looking plants, The Unkillables will ensure your put your plant-murdering days firmly in the past, and will transform your home into the gorgeous green space you always dreamed of. Are you a plant killer? There's nothing more heart-breaking than bringing your new plant baby home, only to have it die a slow death in front of your very eyes. Was it too much water? Not enough sunlight? A drafty corner? The reasons for planticide can seem endless! In The Unkillables, Jo Lambell shares her houseplant knowledge so that even the biggest plant serial killers can have an abundant indoor garden. Jo will take the fear out of the unknown and equip those with no green fingers at all with the skills they need to keep their plants alive and thriving. Plants can be a little intimidating - with their fancy Latin names, complex terminology and 'just look at me and I'll perish' reputation - so choosing hardy, tolerant plants is the best place to start. Jo walks you through the basics of care - light, water, location - as well as sharing information on repotting, propagating, cleaning, First Aid and more.

Based on both research and practical experience,Ecological Landscape Design and Planning offers a holistic methodological approach to landscape design and planning. It focuses on the scarcity of natural resources in the Mediterranean and the need to aim for long-term ecological stability and environmental sustainability. The principles of this approach, therefore, can be used as a theoretical foundation for holistic landscape research, creative ecological design and better sustainable practice development.

The Vermont Gardener's Companion tells how to get the most out of Vermont's short gardening season and details how readers can use organic methods to improve soil, deal with diseases and pests, and get better results with their plants in a state where "winter temperatures plunge far below zero and rocks left by the glaciers pop out of the ground each spring like bread from hyperactive toasters." With good humor and a natural teacher's gift for explanations, Henry Homeyer makes gardening fun and readily accessible to all.

Successful garden designs offer a careful arrangement of form, texture, proportion, and color harmony. In these pages, the renowned landscape architect and horticulturist Joe Hudak provides an overview of design innovations through the ages and concludes with a personal account of his own five-year-long garden renovation project.

The New York Botanical Garden was established with a mission to seek knowledge about plant life, conduct research, offer courses of instruction, and provide a place for the public to learn about botany. This historical study of the New York Botanical Garden provides the first and only comprehensive social history of this vital institution. The monograph is intended for the general public as well as the scientific community. In order to familiarize the reader with the nature and historical development of the modern botanical garden, the narration begins long before 1891, and goes back as far as the Ancient Egyptians and Romans. In addition, the work discusses the interesting local history and people who inhabited the area where the great institution was established. The story continues with the foundations of The Garden, and its early history and developments through the Depression. The book also considers the growing importance of environmental issues and the growth of the conservatory, library, and herbarium. The history concludes with the major events of the late 1970s, with an overview of the garden up to the year 2000. Every institution or organization has a mission. The New York Botanical Garden provides a public service to improve human life, and has assumed a certain charisma that permeates its very foundation. Reading the institution's story illuminates this charisma, which has characterized the Garden throughout its history.

In Uplift Cinema, Allyson Nadia Field recovers the significant yet forgotten legacy of African American filmmaking in the 1910s. Like the racial uplift project, this cinema emphasized economic self-sufficiency, education, and respectability as the keys to African American progress. Field discusses films made at the Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes to promote education, as well as the controversial The New Era, which was an antiracist response to D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. She also shows how Black filmmakers in New York and Chicago engaged with uplift through the promotion of Black modernity. Uplift cinema developed not just as a response to onscreen racism, but constituted an original engagement with the new medium that has had a deep and lasting significance for African American cinema. Although none of these films survived, Field's examination of archival film ephemera presents a method for studying lost films that opens up new frontiers for exploring early film culture.

This guide provides the ideas and know-how needed for creating a garden from scratch. Aimed at the novice gardener, the book takes you through every stage of the design, construction and planting process, helping to assess your needs and match them to your plot, budget and time available. Construction and planting techniques are illustrated in step-by-step projects that include building steps, planting a tree and installing a water feature. Notebook sections include grids and storyboards for designing individual features and planting schemes. A plant care troublehooters helps you to identify and treat common ailments and a calendar of essential tasks will help your garden look good all year round.

Designing real gardens on slopes for real people forms the central core of this book. It demonstrates that making plans for gardens on slopes of all types really works. Not only that, they are a necessary part of the process of turning challenging sites into attractive gardens. This is a really useful book that shows how good design helps to avoid costly common mistakes. It is a simple and informative guide detailing from survey to construction and planting. Not many gardens are completely flat. Just one step in a garden makes a big difference, adding more interest to the site. But slopes do present more of a challenge when designing gardens and definitely add to the expense of a building project. A select portfolio of beautifully designed gardens shows projects from start to finish. These are not simply attractive garden plans - they actually work! Not only does this book inspire, it will show how to master hilly sites. There are currently no books that deal specifically with this common problem: in fact, in many books, designing gardens on slopes is barely mentioned. Students of garden design, qualified garden and landscape designers, landscape builders and architects, and owners of sloping gardens will therefore find this book particularly useful.

As Florida is developed the native flora is often replaced with non-native plants. Wildlife habitat is reduced; water, fertilizer and pesticide usage increases; and the appearance of Florida is altered. But you can help reduce the damage being done to our ecosystems by viewing your yard as part of the natural system. This book will help you make a plan that will work for your yard and choose the native plants that will thrive there. You will have the joy of creating an aesthetically pleasing, life-supporting, and environmentally sensitive landscape. Methods for a small fruit and vegetable garden are also covered.

Here is your essential guide to successful native-plant gardening in Wisconsin. Gardeners use native plants for many reasons. Native plants often require less maintenance, and they are better able to survive and grow in our state's difficult soil and weather conditions. But equally appealing is the joy of connecting with our state's natural heritage--and the satisfaction of creating a true sense of place rather than just another cookie-cutter landscape. "Landscaping with Native Plants of Wisconsin" is the first book designed to help you identify and effectively use our state's native plants and native-plant communities in a typical home landscape. You'll find the basic gardening information you need to successfully grow native plants. You'll learn what level of native-plant landscaping is right for you and get expert advice on the process of designing a natural garden that fits your property, your lifestyle, and your family's needs. The book includes many plant lists. Some deal with common landscape problems and difficult sites, including deer-resistant plants, shade gardens, and water-wise gardens. Other lists tell you what native plants will work well in different garden styles, including water and rock gardens as well as plants to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. The Native Plant Profiles section is an encyclopedia with comprehensive descriptions of 500 Wisconsin native-plant species, varieties, and cultivars of flowers, trees, shrubs, vines, evergreens, grasses, ferns, and groundcovers--including information on planting, maintenance, and landscape uses for each plant. Lynn M. Steiner is a native of Wisconsin and one of the Midwest's best-known garden writers. Her enthusiasm fornative plants and gardening stems from a childhood curiosity about all things natural, as well as over 20 years of tending her own extensive home gardens. For 15 years, she was the editor of "Northern Gardener" magazine, which earned numerous awards for "Overall Excellence" under her direction.

Here are 100 beautiful orchids that you can grow in Florida.

These orchids were chosen for their beauty, ease of cultivation, and suitability to Florida's climate. Whether you are an old hand at growing orchids or are a beginner anxious to try it, you will find help here choosing the plants that will work for you, as well as help on how best to make them prosper.

First you will learn about the structure of orchids; how they are named; and how to pot, water, feed, ventilate, and protect them from weather and insects. You will find you can grow them inside and outside in Florida, and some even in the ground as part of the landscape. Then you will be introduced to 100 fabulous orchids that are well-suited to Florida. You'll find answers to commonly asked questions, lists of suppliers, and a handy reference chart to plant size, flower color, bloom size, bloom time, and exposure.

The ultimate indoor gardening book, this guide offers inspiration and instruction for creating vibrant in-home gardens and caring for your houseplants With plentiful images and a distinctly modern and sophisticated feel, this book imparts both easy-to-follow advice and creative garden-design inspiration. Whether you are looking to pick a statement plant for your living room, create a terrarium centerpiece, or arrange an artful display of air plants, this book will provide the tools you need. You'll be tempted to thumb through it again and again-for both resource and relaxation. The Inspired Houseplant includes: * Plant Basics: beginner-friendly plant care info * Plant Guide: profiles of popular indoor plants * Plant Projects: fun, easy projects with major wow factor (including trending designs like terrariums, air plants, marimo and other underwater gardens, kokedama, mounted staghorn ferns, and edible herbs) * Plant Style: ways to use plants in interior design for every style from Desert Boho to Midcentury Modern

This is an illustrated guide to varieties, cultivation and care, with step-by-step instructions and over 135 beautiful photographs. It is a handy, practical guide to growing and caring for rhododendrons, with instructions for planting outdoors and in containers, mulching, pruning and propagation. It features a full photographic directory of over 50 varieties, including 'Bashful', 'Cecile', 'Homebush', 'May Day', 'Pink Pearl', 'Sappho' and 'Vuyk's Rosyred'. It includes a fascinating history of rhododendrons, from their origins in the Himalayas through to their cultivation in European gardens, and the modern hybrids of today. From tiny, ground-hugging bushes producing small and delicate flowers to huge tree-like specimens clothed in magnificent and glorious blooms, rhododendrons belong to a diverse and fascinating genus. Offering interest from mid-winter to late summer, many of these hardy evergreen shrubs produce exquisitely textured foliage in hues of silver, gold or bronze once the flowering season is over. This practical handbook contains complete instructions for growing rhododendrons, from choosing and buying to planting, propagation and controlling pests and diseases.With over 50 varieties described and illustrted, there is a beautiful rhododendron to suit every garden situation.

The Colorado Gardener's Companion is your guide to cultivating a successful garden in the Centennial State. Whether you are an experienced green thumb or an inquiring novice, whether you live in the mountains, on the Western Slope, along the Front Range, or on the eastern plains, this easy-to-understand guide will help you grow bountiful vegetables, abundant flowers, and lush lawns. You will learn:What's in your Colorado soil and how to improve itHow to take advantage of the state's semiarid climateTechniques to maximize the short growing seasonThe best high-performance plant varieties for your climate How to landscape to conserve waterWays to deal with the challenges of Colorado's wild weatherLocal sources of hands-on assistance with gardening questionsIn short, how to succeed in your Rocky Mountain garden

Following on from the critically acclaimed The Landscape Lighting Book, this is the lighting design companion every professional and student in landscape architecture needs. Written by an award-winning internationally renowned landscape lighting designer, with over 40 years' experience in professional practice, The Art of Landscape Lighting takes the reader step-by-step through Janet Lennox Moyer's design process. Personal and accessible in tone, the book covers tools, equipment, techniques, effects, installation, design composition and challenges using built case studies spanning the author's career. Each project takes you through the process of how to plan compositions; selecting what should be lit and what should remain unlit; how to prioritize the importance of multiple elements; balancing brightness relationships; providing visual transportation across scenes; lighting the same space in different ways and, importantly, guidance on when designs are complete. Lavishly designed and illustrated with 450 full colour photographs, showcasing projects from start to finish, it additionally includes new landscape lighting equipment and techniques developed by Moyer throughout her career. This includes shore scraping, rainwall lighting, approaches for lighting water features and sculptures, and the 3-prong stake. Aimed at practicing professionals and students in landscape architecture, this book is the must-have inspirational resource that provides you with everything you need to design and implement landscape lighting across multiple scales.

To primitive man the whisper and movement of leaves and the silent unfolding of flowers were proofs of life and power, and their regeneration was a promise of nature's continuity. Cures, magic, divination and portents were all connected with the rich variety of available plant life, especially in verdant Britain. Some of these beliefs were astonishingly long-lasting and, even if an altered or faded form, have survived the sophistications of modern life, as this book sets out to show. This volume is arranged in alphabetical order and is illustrated with engravings from old herbals.'

Gardening is one of America's most popular hobbies, and attendance at public gardens and arboreta continues to rise. Gardens Across America: Vol. II is a comprehensive guide to nearly 1,000 gardens west of the Mississippi. Each entry in this state-by-state guide contains such basic information as hours of operation and directions as well as a listing of activities, educational programs, and unique botanical features.

This refreshing new gardening book is made especially for those who are looking to squeeze gardening into their already hectic schedules. Freeman brings a realistic view to gardening, allowing you to actually achieve and enjoy the time you spend. The Spare Time Gardener covers design, planning, enhancing and maintaining all for the gardener on the go.