"There is an odd, subversive book called The Decadent Gardener by Medlar Lucan and Durian Gray. The introduction describes the decadent gardening ethos thus: 'In the garden, the decadent seeks to create a moment of beauty, which should be allowed to fall into decay and ruin.'Gardening, Lucan and Gray believe, is 'little more than systematic violence in pursuit of beauty', and the gardener is first and foremost a sadist. These two, the Kropotkin and De Sade of horticulture, understand that'nowhere are sex and death more intimately bound together than in the garden.' For them the garden is a place of 'agony, self-doubt and betrayal.' They remind us that, if we are to believe the Bible - not that they would be inclined to - the first murder was carried out by a gardener.And the first garden was a place where sin beckoned wherever you turned.The book abounds with piercing, pricking truths.The flower, they remind us, for example, is nothing but a sexual organ.The Decadent Garden consists of the plans for a series of thematic gardens that Lucan and Gray had conceived for a wealthy patroness. Each garden would symbolise an aspect of nature as they saw it. The Cruel Garden would consist largely of impenetrable thickets of thorns.The Fatal Garden would contain only representatives of the vegetable world's many poisonous denizens: among them, black bryony, dropwort and, of course, deadly nightshade.In the Narcotic Garden, by the side of the opium poppy and cannabis sativa, would grow more obscure mind-altering plants such as mandrake, henbane and thornapple. The Priapic Garden would be populated by those species whose flowers and foliage assumed the most suggestive phallic and vulvic shapes.Their Torture Garden carried the libertine ideas of Lucan and Gray furthest and is perhaps best left to the reader's imagination.Because Lucan and Gray barely realised their designs(they were too decadent to bother), their gardens flourish mainly in the mind."

Plants thrive thanks to back-sparing and thrifty techniques for propagation, fertilization and transplanting, plus tips on beneficial fungi and bugs, magical mulches, edible weeds, water-wise wildflowers and native plants. Design-wise, make a spectacular entrance with a living gate, or see how easy it is to create a vertical or rooftop garden, a whimsical water garden or a stone courtyard. Home-crafted concrete troughs stuffed with succulents stand strong alongside dry-stack stone walls, and simple ideas for playhouses, gazebos and backyard benches will keep readers busy through all seasons. Sow Simple invites all gardeners, whether they have a large acreage or a tiny urban oasis, to have fun, experiment and see how wonderful it can be to spend time in the garden.
To contact the authors and find out more about their latest gardening adventures, please visit their blog: everydayeden.com

This fully updated second edition of the best-selling Weeds of the Northeast provides lavish illustrations for ready identification of more than 500 common and economically important weeds in the Northeast and in the Upper Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. This new edition covers the region south to North Carolina, north to Maine and southern Canada, and west to Wisconsin. This practical guide includes descriptions and photos of floral and vegetative characteristics, giving anyone who works with plants the ability to identify weeds before they flower. A broadened range and prevalence of important weeds in the Northeast, as well as the Upper Midwest and Mid-Atlantic United States Standardized species descriptions with a wealth of information in a condensed and comprehensive format-more than 200 new species accounts Easy identification through a dichotomous key, detailed descriptions, and images Comparison tables make it easy to differentiate between many closely related and similar species Weeds of the Northeast is a comprehensive reference book for those aspects of weed biology and ecology important to weed management. It will serve home gardeners and landscape managers as well as pest management specialists and allergists.

With an emphasis on plants that add the most to the home decor while also being easy to care for, Dornan-Smith's visual guide covers all the basics, including equipment, containers, soil preparation, light requirements and care techniques. Her plant illustrations show off the aesthetic features of each one, from palms and spider plants to succulents, hanging plants, bonsai, bamboo, air plants and herbs. The result is a book that is both fun to browse as well as useful and inspiring. The small format and delightful illustrations makes it a perfect housewarming gift.