Herbs are rewarding and versatile plants. They are easy to grow and add colour, texture and fragrance to our gardens and food.

Jane’s Delicious A-Z of Herbs is a full colour, richly illustrated, hands-on guide to growing and using these productive plants. With a detailed and richly illustrated A-Z reference of 80 plus herbs, the book covers planting and growing, medicinal and culinary uses, as well as their many healing properties.

In her book, Jane shows you how to design and maintain your own herb garden. She also provides practical advice on how to propagate, harvest and preserve herbs, as well as useful tips on how to grow them in containers.

The fourth edition of this popular title has been given a completely new look, but it remains the same practical illustrated guide that is a must-have for all gardeners. The text has been updated to incorporate more indigenous species, locally bred hybrids, and waterwise plants, in keeping with changing trends that recognize the importance of gardening in harmony with the natural environment.

The bulk of the book comprises directories that describe over 2000 plants (trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, creepers, bulbs, grasses and roses) with each entry accompanied by symbols that depict the ideal growing conditions, such as water and sun requirements, hardiness to frost, and whether the plant is deciduous, evergreen or flowering.

A brief introduction covers garden planning and design, maintenance, and how to deal with pests and diseases. The book concludes with a handy list of plants, grouped according to their suitability for particular circumstances, such as drought-tolerance, growing in containers, in full or partial shade, or to provide flowers for the vase.

Create the garden of your dreams with ideas and advice from a leading light in the gardening world, Melanie Walker.

Whether you have a tiny urban courtyard or a roomy rural plot, Garden Style will inspire gardeners from every corner of South Africa to make the most of their garden and entertainment area.

Garden Style describes in detail how to achieve any of 19 distinct garden styles: from sweeping woodland and grassland gardens, through moon, rock and rose gardens, to compact courtyard and cottage gardens. It also covers the fundamentals of gardening, such as understanding garden habitats, basic design elements and water-wise gardening.

Each chapter includes sections on planning and planting, with a list of key plants suited to each style, plus lots of helpful tips and features on different aspects of gardening – and, of course, ample spectacular photos to inspire you.

The mostly edible garden of Babylonstoren in the Drakenstein Valley of the Cape Winelands has become a must-see for all visitors to the region. Not simply because it is beautiful, but because it offers a mesmerising range of experiences to both the day tripper and hotel guest, encompassing history, insight into the workings of a productive farm and food garden, and how the land can be cultivated along diversifi ed yet integrated principles.

As co-author Franchesca Watson says, ‘The way Babylonstoren expresses itself visually is inordinately charming. Every material is simple and intrinsic, nothing is smart or clever or tacky, everything is understandable and fi lled with sincerity; it is a generous place.’

This visually stunning coffee-table book covers every aspect of the 3.5-hectare garden: its design, Cape Dutch history, plants, cultivation methods and the people behind it all.

Do you live in an urban area and want to grow your own organic vegetables, but don’t know where to begin?

Jane’s Delicious Garden is perfect for you – whether you have green fingers or not. Packed with practical advice, time-saving tips, step-by-step instructions and personal anecdotes, this book is for beginners and gardening gurus alike.

With over 200 photographs and detailed information on how to prepare your garden for planting and growing nearly 100 vegetables and herbs, this guide will enable you to feed your family and friends with wholesome, organic food harvested from your own garden.

This guide profiles 101 garden birds likely to be found in gardens across southern Africa, informing readers about what to look and listen for, and where and when. It is also an inspirational guide to creating a bird-friendly garden that is also a reservoir of biodiversity, wherever you are in the region.

With an attractive layout and multiple colour images, it offers the following:

• Descriptions and photos of 101 garden birds
• How to get to know your local species, their feeding, breeding, calls and general behaviour
• How to design your garden to attract the widest range of birds and other wildlife
• The best plants and structures to provide food and shelter for birds
• Detailed lists of recommended trees, shrubs, climbers, aloes and grasses

Kirstenbosch is a name that resonates round the world as the home of a uniquely rich flora in a setting of unsurpassed beauty, and in 2013 Kirstenbosch celebrates its 100th anniversary. This centenary publication tells the story of its establishment, its setbacks and triumphs, its benefactors and heros. It outlines the Garden's scientific eminence – as the repository of knowledge on our prized flora – and details the many attractions that make it a favourite destination for Capetonians and visitors alike.

With a finely crafted text by acclaimed ecologist Brian Huntley, and lavishly illustrated with photographs and artworks that tell the history and reflect the beauty of the Garden, this will be a sought-after volume – a quality memento for visitors to Kirstenbosch and a keepsake for the many thousands of locals who flock there annually. Beautifully presented in a colourful dustjacket, this book will be a tasteful, all-occasions gift, and one to cherish.

This handy pocket guide introduces local gardening enthusiasts to some of southern Africa’s most beautiful, beneficial and easy- to-care-for indigenous plants, giving guidance on how best to use them and how to ensure that they flourish.

It offers:

• A selection of 145 garden-friendly, low-maintenance trees, shrubs and bedding plants perfectly adapted to our local soils and weather conditions
• Text that’s direct and simple
• Full-colour photographs that show plant details and ‘in context’ planting
• Icons indicating at a glance whether a species is evergreen or deciduous, frost-hardy, suitable for a sunny or shaded position, fast or slow-growing, water wise, fragrant and attractive to insects or birds.

An essential handbook for easy-care beautiful gardening.

The author, Glenice Ebedes, is the owner of Grounded Landscaping. She is a graduate of Lifestyle College and an active member of the Guild of Landscape Designers. She specializes in indigenous, wildlife-friendly gardens and her gardens regularly feature in magazines.

This comprehensive guide to vegetable gardening in South Africa, written especially for the home gardener, is based on vast practical experience and an intimate knowledge of local growing conditions.

Part 1 provides down-to-earth advice on location and layout of the vegetable gaarden;soils and nutrients; garden planning and crop rotation; tools and equipment; watering; cultivation and weed control; seed, sowing, transplanting, harvesting, and pests and their control; container growing, and the use of plastics in the vegetable garden. In part 2 the common as well as a number of unusual vegetables are fully discused. Invaluable information on cultivars, soil preparation, propagation, sowing, transplanting, harvesting, and pests and diseases are included. This is followed by short descriptions of the more widely used culinary herbs. Finally, the appendices give information on how to grow salad sprouts, and detailed and invaluable advice on exhibiting vegetables.

Whether your garden is a smallholding or a townhouse patio, The A - Z of Vegetable Gardening in South Africa is an essential handbook containing everything you need to know for the successfull production of your own top-quality vegetables throughout the year.

Foolproof mosaic projects for your garden, including planters, furniture, and ornaments

One of the most long-lasting and hard-wearing artforms, mosaic pieces are perfect to make the most of your outdoor room. Suitable for a tiny terrace or a large garden, the projects in Garden Mosaics show you how to decorate your outdoor space in the most charming, individual, and enduring way.

The extensive techniques section shows you how to choose and use the right tiles for your environment. The range of tiles on the market today is better than ever; and the book makes the most of the wealth of new materials available such as spangled tiles or inexpensive but authentic gold-leaf tiles. As you progress, you can develop your own creativity with tips on tile- and colourmatching that allow you to adapt the projects to make pieces completely unique to you and your garden.

All suitable for beginners, the 25 projects in the book range from simple decorative pieces, such as the enchanting, simple child’s footprints and butterfly stones to practical and sturdy weatherproof pieces, including a trompe l’oeil chequered mosaic tabletop and delightful planters that will add colour to your garden especially in winter. Some projects, such as the night light, can be finished in under two hours.

Do you love living in the city but dream about growing your own wholesome fruit and vegetables? South Africa’s organic gardening guru, Jane Griffiths, shows you just how easy it is to achieve a flourishing food garden, no matter how small your space.

Jane’s Delicious Urban Gardening is packed with inspirational ideas and practical information on all aspects of urban eco living.

In her trademark sensible and easy-to-follow style, Jane provides a wealth of tips and suggestions for:

• growing organic vegetables just about anywhere – from containers to edible walls, from raised beds to rooftops, from community gardens to neglected pavements
• planting and maintaining a space-efficient urban orchard
• converting an existing lawn or tennis court into an instant edible oasis
• keeping urban bees, hens and aquaponic tanks
• harvesting rainwater and recycling grey water
• introducing solar power into your home
• converting a chlorinated swimming pool into a wetland-filtered haven.

Illustrated with hundreds of beautiful colour photographs, Jane’s Delicious Urban Gardening is essential reading for anyone wanting to live a more sustainable, productive and healthy lifestyle in the city.

In hierdie boek wys twee kenners jou hoe om dit reg te kry, met honderde voorbeelde uit tuine van regoor die land. Dit wys jou dat 'n tuin basies 'n kombinasie is van kleur, vorm, tekstuur en groeiwyses - in wese 'n kombinasie van kombinasies. Leer hoe om plante te kombineer wat mekaar aanvul en hul eie harmonie skep en hoe om plante en elemente te kombineer vir enersheid, of vir andersheid. Deur uitgesoekte plante en elemente saam te gebruik, skep jy 'n prentjie wat mooier, treffender en meer skouspelagtig is as wat elk van die gekombineerde elemente individueel sou kon doen. Die skeppende omvang van kombinasiemoontlikhede kan nie gekwantifiseer word nie - as jy jou 'n kombinasie kan voorstel, kan jy dit skep. In Kreatiewe kombinasies word in vier kategoriee na kombinasies gekyk: kleur, vorm en groeiwyse, tekstuur en die tuin en plante se spesifieke omgewing. Daar is meer as 230 foto's om jou te bekoor en inspireer en al die nodige inligting om slim en vindingryk met kombinasies te werk. Vergroot jou tuin se trefkrag deur die beste moontlike gebruik van die kombinasies daarin.

This step-by-step guide will answer all of your questions about how to create beautiful gardens designed to welcome beneficial pollinators across the South. Combining up-to-date scientific information with artful design strategies, Danesha Seth Carley and Anne M. Spafford teach gardeners of all levels to plan, plant, and maintain successful pollinator gardens at home and in shared community sites. Everyday gardeners, along with farmers, scientists, and policy makers, share serious concerns about ongoing declines in pollinator populations, and here Spafford and Carley deliver great news: every thoughtfully designed garden, no matter how small, can play a huge role in providing the habitat, nourishment, and nesting places so needed by pollinators. This book explains all you need to be a pollinator champion. Covers USDA hardiness zones 6, 7, 8, and 9, including twelve southern states; Explains what makes pollinators happy-bees, for sure, and many others, great and small; Brings science and art together in gardens of all types, including urban, food, container, community, school, and large-scale gardens; Provides step-by-step instructions, from choosing locations, preparing soil and garden beds, selecting the best plants, designing, landscaping, and sustaining your garden through the seasons, and much more; Richly illustrated with photographs, design plans, and handy charts and lists.

A Curious Garden of Herbs is a richly illustrated collection of herbal fact and lore that illuminates the "why" rather than the "how" of the historical kitchen garden. Rather than offering a how-to of gardening methods, Kay K. Moss and Suzanne S. Simmons trace herbs and their uses back to earlier times and places. A Curious Garden of Herbs is peppered with reflections and observations from manuscripts and published herbals that detail the historical uses and fascinating stories surrounding plants of documented interest in the early American South and mid-Atlantic. Practicality and necessity were the guiding theses for gardening in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century rural and frontier settlements in the Southeast. There were plants for food, for seasoning, for medicine, for dye, for insect repellency, and for scent. While many of these plants were also decorative, utility dominated the rationale of backcountry gardeners. Unlike the experimental and exotic collections of Thomas Jefferson and other wealthy gentleman botanists, the gardens detailed in these pages are generally of the "middling sort"-of townspeople and farmers, of "housewives," merchants, and artisans. A Curious Garden of Herbs brings these everyday herbs to life with sixty historical illustrations. In addition to including the well-known varieties such as parsley, lavender, cucumber, and asparagus, this wonderfully illustrated catalog of more than a hundred plants also reveals new ways to enjoy violet, rose, and nasturtium. Moss and Simmons also encourage readers to invite lesser-known plants, such as wild purslane, mullein, and wood sorrel into their gardens and conversations.

With over 40 projects to make your own creative containers, let Frances Tophill show you how to use often overlooked pots to their full potential and transform your garden - whether you've only got a modest balcony, small square of patio or just a windowsill. There is always room for a bit of greenery in your life. Whether it's growing herbs to add a fresh touch of flavour to your cooking or planting succulents to display on your windowsill, containers help you to bring nature to the most inhospitable and smallest of spaces. Frances covers a range of different planting schemes and types of container, from urns and troughs to chimney stacks and hanging baskets. She delivers expert advice on what to grow - from bonsais, bulbs and bamboos to tumbling and creeping plants and flowers - and shows you how to make a living wall, a pond in a metal trough or even your own bespoke containers. With Frances's creative ideas, you can transform any garden into a host of inspirational and unique pots and plants.

'What Penelope so successfully achieves is casting the visions of today over the layers of the past, contextualizing them in a way that diminishes neither the new nor the old...Comprehensive work' - House & Garden magazine

'Deservedly claims its position on the bookshelf' - The English Garden magazine

A fully updated and revised edition of a gardening classic.

From the cooling fountains of the Alhambra to the imposing palace grounds of Chinese emperors and the clean lines of the formal French parterre, this inspiring history charts the fascinating evolution of gardening over thousands of years, bringing to life the world's most beautiful and magnificent gardens.

The Story of Gardening explains the origins of the most influential gardening styles. Acclaimed garden designer and plantswoman Penelope Hobhouse draws on her extensive experience and shows you how an appreciation of style and techniques from all over the world helps us to understand how modern gardens have developed.

Unrivalled in its coverage and written with the author's characteristic clarity and authority, this exceptional book is guaranteed to appeal to gardening enthusiasts or all ages and levels of expertise.

Chapters include:

The Origins of Gardening: the gardens of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia.

Gardens of Ancient Greece and Rome: The beginnings of botany and herbalism and design developments in the Classical world.

The Gardens of Islam: the `fourfold' garden's spread from the Middle East.

The Medieval Gardens of Christendom: The layers of meaning in the gardens of the Middle Ages.

The Renaissance Vision in Italy: The transition from classical villa gardens.

The Flowering of the European Garden: Louis XIV's power-gardening.

Plants on the Move: Early plant enthusiasts who searched for new species.

The English Landscape Garden: The 18th century Landscape Movement

The Eclectic 19th Century: European gardening during technological change.

The Americas Gardening's evolution on the American continent.

Gardens of China: Chinese gardening's links with the landscape and painting.

The Japanese Garden: Japanese design's influence on the rest of the world.

From Naturalism to Modernism: Pioneer voices as gardening goes global.

Visions of the Future: The faces shaping gardening in the 21st century.

Laat Frances Tophill jou met meer as 40 projekte vir kreatiewe houers wys hoe om dikwels misgekykte potte ten beste te benut in jou tuin - of dit nou 'n beskeie balkonnetjie, 'n klein stoepie of net 'n vensterbank is.Daar is altyd plek vir 'n bietjie groenig-heid in 'n mens se lewe. Of jy nou iets vars by jou kombuistuin wil voeg of sukkulente op jou vensterbank wil uitstal, houers maak dit moontlik om die natuur in die kleinste en moeilikste plekkies in te bring. Frances dek 'n verskeidenheid plant-skemas en soorte houers - van kruike en troe tot gestapelde potte en hang-mandjies. Sy gee raad oor die beste plante vir houers, van bonsaibome en bolle tot rankplante en snyblomme. Leer hoe om 'n lewende muur te skep, 'n metaalpot vir 'n dammetjie te gebruik, 'n geut-pyp met aarbeie te beplant of selfs jou eie potte te maak. Met die kreatiewe idees in hierdie boek, kan jy enige tuin met net 'n paar houers in iets besonders omskep.

Most gardens have shady spots, but some gardens have a real shade ‘problem’. Whether it is caused by large or overhanging trees, tall buildings, or just being on the ‘wrong side of the street’, fi nding the best plants for a shady area can be challenging, particularly if the rest of your garden basks in sunshine all year round. Shade plants are not necessarily tropical, although many tropical plants thrive in shade. Some delicate leafy plants will scorch and burn in hot sun, some plants like shady conditions but not damp soil, while others grow happily in damp, boggy ground that receives minimum sunlight. Gardening in the Shade examines the different types of shade and the effect it has on plant growth.

It presents solutions to common problems such as feeding, watering and mulching shade plants, and how to deal with exacerbating factors such as wind, frost and soil type. Popular shade plants, like clivias, bromeliads, fuchsias and ferns are given special features, and a directory of species lists plants under headings like ground covers, tropical-looking perennials, and succulents.

First published in 1995, this invaluable guide to the trees, shrubs, ground covers, and smaller plants that thrive in New Mexico's many life zones and growing areas is now available in a long-awaited new edition. Landscape architect Baker H. Morrow considers the significant factors that impact planting in New Mexico-including soil conditions, altitude, drought, urban expansion, climate change, and ultraviolet radiation-to provide the tools for successful gardens and landscapes in the state. Added photographs and sketches identify the forms and uses of plants, including many new species that have become widely available in the region since the 1990s. The latest recommendations for specific cities and towns include more photos for ease of reference, and botanical names have also been updated. With ingenuity and efficient water management, Morrow demonstrates how to create landscapes that provide shade, color, oxygen, soil protection, windscreening, and outdoor enjoyment.

Ever wondered how to make a garden attractive in December? Or what to do with that corner by the dustbin? Answers to these questions can be found in this compact and charming book of tips for the green-fingered, accompanied by Heath Robinson's highly inventive and humorous cartoons. First published in 1938, the book gives an insight into gardening trends on the eve of the Second World War while also addressing common concerns faced by gardeners. It features many typically elaborate contraptions such as the Combined Telescopic Spaderake for digging and raking at the same time, the Inebriate Roller for making wobbly garden paths and the Osoeezi Slugsticker. While some are patently ridiculous - a lawn is de-thistled and resown with the help of a barrel of grass seed strapped onto a small donkey - others are before their time, such as a special pump that can divert your bathwater into your garden hose, a contraption that is not wildly dissimilar to gadgets on the market today. Finally, the growing of vegetables inspires some sage advice: 'with the right kind of upbringing, a marrow will attain astonishing dimensions, and can be used for boasting purposes.' Poking gentle fun at a British obsession with a detailed illustration on almost every page, this book will delight both aspiring and experienced gardeners alike.

Jane’s Delicious A–Z of Vegetables is an accessible guide to the most commonly-grown vegetables, plus many new and unusual ones now available, with detailed information on how to sow, plant, feed, water, protect, harvest and eat them, as well as save their seed for future generations. Written in Jane’s quirky, practical style and lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs for easy reference, this is a one-stop guide to growing any type of vegetable organically.

Pocket Guide Fynbos features over 300 of the most spectacular and commonly seen species
from South Africa’s renowned floral kingdom – all in one handy, easy-to-use guide.

The species are presented in detail, with each entry featuring:

• succinct descriptions of the plant and its habitat, comparisons with similar species
• and fl owering times
• full-colour photographs and distribution maps
• floral key, using symbols to denote main identifying features
• interesting facts about species.

For ease of use, the species are divided into 10 distinct groups, and an illustrated fl oral key
on the inside front cover offers fl ower lovers a smart tool with which to identify species
more accurately.

The introduction describes the world of fynbos, detailing the origins, diversity, adaptations
and conservation of this unique flora.

This compact guide is an invaluable aid for anyone interested in South Africa’s astonishing
floral treasures.