You know you're a gardening fanatic when... ... you favour your ride-on lawnmower over your Ferrari. ... you think talking dirty means whispering the word 'compost'. If this sounds all too familiar, read on to discover whether you've really gone to seed or you're just one petal short of a flower!

A great must-have book packed full of brilliant tips and ideas from award-winning BBC radio gardening presenter and journalist, Steve Brookes. The book is a result of Steve's 30+ years as a professional horticulturalist and nearly 20 years as a gardening broadcaster and presenter. It is packed full of ideas for banishing slugs, snails, aphids, ants, cats, squirrels and countless other garden pests, plus many fun, money-saving and innovative tips for growing healthier plants in your garden. Steve has included many useful plant lists for different garden aspects and some brilliant recycling ideas that will really get you smiling. The book also forms the basis of Steve's 'The Greatest Gardening Tips in the World' live show, which he performs around the UK and on cruise ships across the world. Novice and experienced gardeners alike will find this a rewarding and enjoyable read, which they will refer to again and again!

This is one of those "especially for now" kinds of books, when food security appears on our basic to-do list. It's about growing food closer to where we live, whether it's on a condo deck, in a backyard or in a community garden. The 20-30 Something Garden Guide gives that active, mostly urban, 20-30 cohort a fun, non-intimidating introduction to the basics of gardening. More than ever, they want to know where their food comes from, and they're hip to the importance of good health and the environment. They may not have a lot of free time or change in their pockets, but if they could find a no-fuss, "here's how you can do it" Gardening 101, they'd go for it. This is that book: high graphic appeal, fully illustrated, step-by-step projects and essential tips. Garden expert Dee Nash divides her book into four types and sizes of gardens - starting with Farming Your Patio, Balcony or Deck - and giving incremental goals for the first year, and the second and third. With this guide as a basic roadmap, new gardeners can be as creative and out-of-the-box as they want.

A complete guide to cultivating and harvesting the beautiful opium poppy.
The opium poppy is a potent plant that has been cultivated and used for thousands of years to alleviate suffering. The use of plant substances as alternatives to synthetic medicines is resurging due to their beneficial properties and less-toxic side effects. For example, many cancer and HIV sufferers are growing opium for personal use.
"Opium Poppy Garden" is the only book available that describes the cultivation, harvest and pharmacology of opium in a format that combines literary and instructional writing. The heart of the book is the tale of Ch'ien, a young Chinese man who travels from Costa Rica to Columbia to grow an opium garden in the manner his Taoist grandfather taught him. The story, in conjunction with "The Cultivator's Diary" and the technical appendix, provide the reader with a working knowledge of this plant.

"The Florida Gardener's Handbook" has more than 300 proven plants, including tropical choices. Helpful icons highlight plant benefits and sun and shade requirements. Twelve months of when-to advice for each plant category help Florida gardeners keep their gardens growing. The authors address the challenges of Florida gardening with tropical and saltwater gardening information and garden how-tos for planting, pruning, watering, and much more. Full-color images for each plant and helpful illustrations and charts make this an easy-to-use resource for all Florida gardeners. This resource guide provides all the need-to-know information for Florida gardeners from leading Florida gardening experts.

Birthdays and anniversaries are never easy to remember. The RHS Birthday Book is the place to keep all your important dates together so that you will never have to worry about forgetting them again. This brand new edition of the best-selling RHS Birthday Book features all new illustrations.

Only one thing is standing between you and a fabulous lawn: It's called Lawn Care For Dummies. If you want a spiffy and well-coifed lawn (and not the overgrown, unruly one that people comment on when they pass by your house), you'll find everything you need to know to help you make your lawn the most dazzling spectacle on the block.

Let authors Lance Walheim and the gardening experts at the National Gardening Association treat you and your yard to a megadose of lawn care information. In Lawn Care For Dummies, Walheim and the NGA give you the dirt on all the essentials, including how to

• Design a low-maintenance or a high-maintenance lawn
• Evaluate the pros and cons of planting a lawn from seed or starting one from sod
• Discover how often you need to water your lawn without under-watering it or waterlogging it
• Choose a mower that's right for your grass type
• Deal effectively with wicked weeds and pesky insects
• Create alternative lawns, such as ground cover plants, decks, and patios

Lawn Care For Dummies also features a beautiful color insert with photos illustrating the various types of lawns found in yards across the world.

Piet Oudolf is renowned for his exceptional use of perennials and grasses. His deep knowledge of plants and skill in choosing and grouping them is brilliantly displayed at Hauser & Wirth Somerset in an immersive, botanically rich garden which enthralls visitors in every season. The garden piqued the interest of plantsman and garden designer Rory Dusoir who undertook regular visits over the course of a year. In this book he describes the beautiful, dependable plants used to striking effect, scrutinizes the classic Oudolf planting techniques and marvels at the sporobolus meadow which Piet has described as "wilder than wildness itself". Oudolf fans will delight in this book which gives full access to the plant lists, planting combinations and horticultural know-how. More than 300 exceptional quality photographs capture the very special quality of the gardens and, combined with the text, offer a unique insight into planting the Oudolf way.

'Wonderfully intense and honest - a poignant manual of how to grow hope against the odds.' Chris Packham, TV presenter and author of Fingers in the Sparkle Jar Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her decked, barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space. On her own she unscrews, saws and hammers the decking away, she clears the builders' rubble and rubbish beneath it, and she digs and enriches the soil, gradually planting it up with plants she knows will attract wildlife. She erects bird boxes and bee hotels, hangs feeders and grows nectar- and pollen-rich plants, and slowly brings life back to the garden. But while she's doing this Kate's neighbours continue to pave and deck their gardens locking them away, the wildlife she tries to save is further threatened, and she feels she's fighting an uphill battle. Is there any point in gardening for wildlife when everyone else is drowning the land in poison and cement? Sadly, events take Kate away from her garden, and she finds herself back home in Birmingham where she grew up, travelling the roads she used to race down on her bike in the eighties, thinking of the gardens and wildlife she loved, witnessing more land lost beneath paving stones. If the dead could return, what would they say about the land we have taken, the ancient routes we have carved up, the wildlife we have lost?

In this sequel to her 2007 best-seller "A Garden Lover's Cape Cod," one of New England's foremost gardeners photographs and analyzes her favorite public and private gardens on Martha's Vineyard.

There is no shortage of books on how to look after houseplants but no one has shown us how and when and why these plants came to be in our homes. Catherine Horwood's combination of social history, plant history and the history of interior design explains why, as Flanders and Swann sung in the 1950s, 'the garden's full of furniture / and the house is full of plants.' In this fascinating book we learned how potted plants are as much subject to fashion as pieces of furniture. For the Victorians, it was the aspidistra in the front parlour, the Edwardians loved a palm, and, for today's millennials, no home is complete without the ubiquitous fiddle-leaf fig. This book show that there is little new when it comes to plants in the home. In the mid-18th century, Wedgwood created a market for special bulb pots and in the 1950s, some of Terence Conran's earliest designs were for houseplant containers. Across the ages, the choice of potted plants has been influenced by the layout of houses, the levels of dirt and pollution and the equipment to hand. Now, with so much choice, we seem happy to treat houseplants as disposables. This book gives a better understanding of the miracles that were once achieved with indoor plant displays, inspired by Sir Hugh Platt's 1608 vision of a garden 'within doores'. This new edition has been revised with new material added to bring the history of the houseplant and its massive explosion in popularity right up to date.

What do you do when you find yourself living as a stranger? When Beth Lynch moved to Switzerland, she quickly realised that the sheer will to connect with people would not guarantee a happy relocation. Out of place and lonely, Beth knows that she needs to get her hands dirty if she is to put down roots. And so she sets about making herself at home in the way she knows best - by tending a garden, growing things. The search for a garden takes her across the country, through meadows and on mountain paths where familiar garden plants run wild, to the rugged hills of the Swiss Jura. In this remote and unfamiliar place of glow worms and dormice and singing toads she learns to garden in a new way, taking her cue from the natural world. As she plants her paradise with hellebores and aquilegias, cornflowers and Japanese anemones, these cherished species forge green and deepening connections: to her new soil, to her old life in England, and to her deceased parents, whose Sussex garden continues to flourish in her heart. WHERE THE HORNBEAM GROWS is a memoir about carrying a garden inwardly through loss, dislocation and relocation, about finding a sense of wellbeing in a green place of your own, and about the limits of paradise in a peopled world. It is a powerful exploration by a dazzling new literary voice of how, in nurturing a corner of the natural world, we ourselves are nurtured.

From needle size, yarn weight, and gauge to techniques and instructions, "Knitting Essentials" is an informative booklet and the go-to guide for knitting enthusiasts. Learn the different stitches, along with interesting twists and finishing techniques to make your knit projects a success.

"Beginner's Illustrated Guide to Gardening "is a one-stop, easy to understand, beautifully designed book with step-by-step instructions and photographs for every important gardening and landscaping technique. New homeowners with no prior knowledge of landscape care will learn how to turn their yards from weedy, overgrown patches to gorgeous landscapes that are the envy of their neighbors. Young gardeners or new gardeners will learn - the right way - how to take care of everything from perennials to shrubs to their vegetable gardens, ensuring success the first time around. This is the one book that every gardener should have on their bookshelf.

Flower Growing in the North was first published in 1956. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.Since home gardeners living in regions of very cold winters and short growing seasons find little attention paid to their special problems in most gardening books, they will welcome this month-by-month guide. It relates times of planting, needs for winter protection, and selection of plant varieties to the limitations of the northern climate. The best of George Luxton's popular gardening columns in the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune form the basis of the book. For the winter season there is advice on the care of house plants and how to grow seedlings for transplanting outdoors. For the summer gardener there is information about annuals and perennials, fertilizers and insecticides, and garden equipment. Instructions on tree, shrub, and lawn care are given, too. Also included are many of the "Grandma sayings" from Mr. Luxton's newspaper columns. These homely bits of garden lore, which stem from his recollections of his own grandmother, are as intriguing and useful today as they were a generation of two ago.

RHS Can Anything Stop Slugs assists with all of the most common problems encountered in a garden - as well as some slightly more unusual ones. The RHS's Chief Horticulturist, Guy Barter, provides expert advice, responding to the questions posed by thousands of gardeners every year. This entertaining and informative guide provides a wealth of information. Feature boxes of interesting facts enable you to really get to grips with the issue at hand. As the cause of a problem is not always apparent, the main symptom is used as the starting point in each section, enabling you to troubleshoot all your garden problems. This is not a dull reference book full of lists - it is an easy-to-read and amusing look at how we battle with nature in our gardens, showing you how to either come out top or to surrender with dignity.

This is the Spanish translation of "Marijuana Horticulture: the Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible," updated with new greenhouse and outdoor growing chapters.

It all began when Simon Griffiths decided that he and his whippet couldn't live in his tiny but gorgeous one-up one-down shopfront in Melbourne any more. He had a yearning for open spaces, country air and, most importantly, a garden of his own. On finding his cottage in Meadowbank, just outside Sydney, and trialling different plants, he gradually became part of the secret gardening network - the one where cuttings are exchanged between friends, and planting successes and failures are recounted over neighbourhood fences. Simon is a brilliant photographer, bringing warmth and joy to all his subjects, but he is also a very knowledgeable plantsman. In this book he has captured his favourite twenty country-style gardens and shares the knowledge he has gleaned from fellow garden lovers.

This text provides readers with everything they need to know about cultivating and maintaining an indoor garden. It includes information on hydroponics, high intensity lighting, plant nutrient problems, insects, spider mites and diseases.

This is the story of a family wanting to live a simpler life, and create a community. Emma and Tom Lane did just that, and the farm and associated award-winning restaurant they've established in Byron Bay, Australia has become a diverse community of its own, made up of organic growers, chefs, bakers - all connected by the common values of simplicity, sustainability and farm-fresh food.

In The Farm Community they share their guide to living and eating more sustainably, whether in the city, the suburbs or the countryside. Alongside tales of the people who have helped to make The Farm what it is today, you will find recipes collected from across The Farm s community, celebrating a shared love of growing and cooking, as well as rewarding projects like making your own compost bucket, companion planting and drying flowers. Recipes range from the gourmet, like Seaweed-cured fish with Japanese turnip & aniseed myrtle pickle & caramelised kelp to the simple, like Charred eggplant and macadamia nut salad.

Chapters cover The Market Garden, Fruit & Nuts, Flowers & Herbs, Hunt & Gather, The Farmyard, and Bakery & Dairy, and each includes sustainable projects and beautiful recipes.

The Guide to Canadian Vegetable Gardening includes how-to and when to information for successful vegetable gardening thoughout the gardening regions in Canada. Filled with the need to know information on planting, growing and harvesting more than 50 vegetables and herbs. Includes full-color images and helpful maps and charts.

The gardens of the Italian Lakes are a favourite destination for garden lovers and groups. The gardens around Lake Como and Lake Maggiore, in the far north of Italy, are admired throughout the world for their beauty and variety in a magnificent natural location. This book sets out to become the standard work on these gardens as there is nothing of this kind on the market at the moment. It will appeal both to the specialist and enthusiast preparing for a visit. The common factor for all these gardens is their setting in this landscape of exceptional scenery. Lake Como is a deep lake hemmed in like a fjord by towering mountains. Lake Maggiore has more the character of an inland sea, with ferries crossing to the famous island gardens for an afternoon in another world. Both lakes are lined with the towers, villas and grand hotels that speak of a complex history including key events in Italy's struggle to achieve nationhood, inspiration for a string of illustrious writers and composers, and a long line of distinguished visitors. The gardens include: Villa Melzi, Bellagio: an early 19th-century romantic park on the lake shore Villa Carlotta, Cadenabbia: a terraced 17th-century property with woodland Villa del Balbianello, Lenno: a famously picturesque loggia Villa D'Este, Cernobbio: a 16th-century cascade garden with royal connections Villa Cicogna Mozzoni, Bisuschio: an intact 16th-century villa garden Villa Della Porta Bozzolo, Casalzuigno: a rural baroque garden Isola Bella, Stresa: a well-known island garden Isola Madre, Stresa: an island retreat of flowers and birds Villa San Remigio, Pallanza: an Edwardian garden made by two lovers Villa Taranto, Pallanza: one of the world's great woodland gardens