This book is an immersive experience into the delights of foraging in Spring, written by one of Britain's most respected foragers. Forage In Spring celebrates the top fifteen edible and medicinal wild plants found in March, April and May. It's a comprehensive exploration of their past and present uses as food and medicine. An invaluable addition to any forager, herbalist, gardener, horticulturist or naturalist's library, providing plant-lovers with a much-needed resource to understanding nature's most useful wild plants. Inside, you'll discover the forgotten story of Alexanders, Brooklime, Cleavers (Goosegrass), Dandelion, Garlic Mustard, Ground Elder, Ground Ivy, Plantain, Primrose, Ramsons (Wild Garlic), Sea Beet, Sorrel, Sowthistle, Stinging Nettle and Violet. Plants have stories that reconnect us to the Land and the rest of Nature. As our society becomes ever more disconnected, there is a revivalist movement flourishing like a rhizome. This ancient path of the forager reconnects us to the vital, to wildness, to creation, to what is in effect the very pulse of life itself. One of the most direct ways to experience this is to consume this wildness. Take it into our bodies, where like a sleeper agent, it lies dormant until you have eaten enough to change the structure of your blood, thereby changing your brain and how you relate to the non-human world. For it is this simple act. The act of taking wild food and medicine into our body, that in time becomes so transformative. Forage In Spring is not a harking back to some naive, romantic vision of how we might once have lived. Instead, these plants' stories are a way to help you sense into the future and understand our ecological function (as a species) within the world.

Covers forty eight wild edible and medicinal plants of Britain and Ireland.

Includes multiple full-colour photographs of each plant to help make identification easy.

I wrote this book to help you rediscover our forgotten plant heritage. To learn how to use wild plants as food and medicine. Knowledge that was once common to everyone.

Each individual plant profile includes:

• common name
• scientific name
• family
• an easy to understand botanical description
• multiple full colour photos of each plant
• when the plant flowers
• where it is found
• a historical summary
• which parts of the plant to use
• how the plant is used as food
• its nutritional profile
• its traditional folk medicine uses
• and finally, safety notes

The illustrated biography of a Scottish country house, set beside the River Clyde, and of the people who made it their home over the past 850 years Written by four brothers, their sister and the eldest member of the next generation, Finlaystone offers an insidersa view of the house, its beautiful gardens and the surrounding estate. They tell about the lives of its former owners, many of whom played prominent roles in Scottish military, political, religious and cultural affairs. As Scotland moved forward from centuries of feuds between large feudal landowners to the reformation, the age of enlightenment and the industrial revolution, the building evolved from a fortress to a modest but attractive family home in 1746. Its present form as an imposing late Victorian mansion dates from when it was modernised and extended in 1900 by George Jardine Kidston, the great-grandfather of the older authors, who had grown wealthy from running one of the worlda s earliest steamship companies. In its hey-day, Finlaystone was managed for the comfort and leisure of its owners by a bevy of household servants living in a wing of the house, and by an army of workers, including gardeners, foresters, game-keepers, joiners and a laundry-maid. The prosperity that had made such a lavish life possible, however, soon started to decline, with George Kidstona s death in 1909, followed just 5 years later by war, the economic depression in the 1930s, and then World War II. Unlike many other large country houses, Finlaystone remains a family home, kept afloat largely by the hard work and adaptability of the members of the family who reflect in this book on the joys and travails that this implied.

This beautiful book by Rudi Adam not only guides newcomers in the cultivation of bonsai trees but also provides insights and inspiration for the more experienced. Supplemented by excellent drawings by a bonsai grower and informative step-by-step photographs for special techniques, the book is brimful of information and practical advice. The magnificent photographs have been taken over four seasons and show the trees in all their splendour. With detailed, informative captions, every image is not only a visual inspiration, but in itself a further learning opportunity. In addition to cultivation techniques, expert advice on tree selection, soil types, watering and training the trees there is also an extensive species guide with detailed information on growing and maintenance. This book will help you master bonsai and teach you the rules so that you can apply them or successfully break them in your endeavour to excel at the art.