Gardens across the globe come in many sizes and styles, but for the most part they share a remarkable number of similar components. Suzanne Staubach revels in this interconnectivity in A Garden Miscellany. In short essays meant to be dipped in and out of, Staubach shares the history, evolution, and contemporary use of all the parts and pieces that make up a home garden - from borders, compost bins, and decks to pergolas, roof gardens, statues, and troughs. Readers will learn that fairy gardens have their roots in the Tang Dynasty, the difference between an arbor and a pergola, how geometry plays a role in garden design, what a ha-ha is (a ditch deep enough to be a barrier that doesn't interrupt a view), and much more. Featuring bold and whimsical illustrations by Julia Yellow and filled with interesting facts and anecdotes, A Garden Miscellany is a fun and informative gift book for gardeners, plant lovers, and the naturally curious everywhere.

Why do so many people love gardening? What does your garden say about you? What is guerrilla gardening? The Psychology of Gardening delves into the huge benefits that gardening can have on our health and emotional well-being, and how this could impact on the entire public health of a country. It also explores what our gardens can tell us about our personalities, how we can link gardening to mindfulness and restoration, and what motivates someone to become a professional gardener. With gardening being an ever popular pastime, The Psychology of Gardening provides a fascinating insight into our relationships with our gardens.

Learn the secret to transforming a small space into a blooming array of verdant life in this indispensible and handy guide. Small gardens are a challenge to design and to keep looking good but now help is on hand! This practical guide seeks to inspire and inform gardeners to make the most of their small spaces. Featuring more than 50 contemporary and inspirational gardens, the handbook examines both how their designers created them and how their owners use and develop them. This serious review of the perennial subject explains the theory and practice of planting a small garden, as well as design tricks, storage solutions and vertical planting to help small garden owners maximise their small spaces. With advice for embracing sustainability, the use of recycled materials and the scope for bio-diversity, this is the go-to guide to ensure you are getting the most from your small garden. Stunningly illustrated with photos by Dutch garden photographer and former fashion stylist Maayke de Ridder, this is a must for anyone looking to be creative with their small garden.

"An invaluable resource for the home or commercial gardener who wishes to plant native species."--Edward W. Chester, Austin Peay State University
The natural landscape of Tennessee represents a unique treasure for gardeners and nature lovers. Encompassing several geographically distinctive regions, from the 6,000-foot peaks of the Unaka Mountains to the swampy floodplain of the Mississippi River, the state boasts nearly 3,000 native plant species. This stunning diversity of life owes much to Tennessee's prime location at the crossroads of mountain and prairie ecosystems and in the transition area between northern and southern climate patterns.
In Gardening with the Native Plants of Tennessee, Margie Hunter gives gardeners the knowledge they need in order to nurture this natural heritage in their own gardens. Beginning with a survey of the state's ecology--including geology, geography, plant life and animal species--Hunter takes a holistic approach to the process of gardening with native plants. The book's main section provides detailed accounts of 450 species of wildflowers, ferns, grasses, vines, shrubs, and trees native to Tennessee and adjacent states. These descriptions, arranged according to plant type, include both scientific and common name, flowering and fruiting times, propagation methods, soil and light requirements, and distribution patterns within the state. Nearly 400 color photographs illustrate the species discussions.
No other book designed for the home gardener includes such area-specific information on native species or such a comprehensive listing of plants. Appendixes refer readers to other sources of information and seeds, including mail-order nurseries, botanical gardens, state agencies, native plant organizations, and subject-specific conferences. A detailed bibliography also contributes to the reference value of this book for gardeners, landscapers, and nature lovers throughout Tennessee and in neighboring states.
The Author: Margie Hunter, a long-time volunteer at Cheekwood Botanical Garden, lives in Nashville.

Deer are the most common problem a gardener can face. These cute but pesky animals think home-grown flowers and vegetables are delicious, and they can quickly devour hundreds of dollars' worth of plants. Common solutions often include the use of harsh chemicals or unattractive fencing. In her new book Deer-Resistant Design, Karen Chapman offers a new option - intentional garden design choices that help keep deer at bay. Chapman showcases real home gardens across North America that successfully coexist with wildlife. Each homeowner also shares their top deer-resistant plants, all welcome additions to a deer-challenged gardener's shopping list and guaranteed to put the fun back into nursery visits. A chapter on deer-resistant container gardens provides suggestions for making colourful, captivating, and imaginative containers. Lushly illustrated and filled with practical advice and inspiring designs ideas, Deer-Resistant Design is for every home gardener looking for beautiful, natural ways to keep deer out of their gardens.

"I'm not dead yet," writes Clare Hastings to her daughter, Calypso, who will one day inherit Clare's beloved cottage garden in the Berkshire Downs. "In fact I woke up this morning feeling quite chipper. I glanced out of the window . . . and thought about you. And felt a frisson of panic. What if I were to be struck down before elevenses on the B4009? I realized that I needed to leave you a handbook about the garden. For you the countryside is a pathway from the car park to the door, to be completed on the run. But I'm not giving up." The daughter of writer and gardener Anne Scott-James, Clare too was a latecomer to gardening, daunted by Latin names and nervous around plants. Then she realized she wasn't and never would be a 'proper plantsman' and that it didn't matter. Since then she has explored the joys of gardening and now after many years' experience of her own cottage garden, Clare shares her gardening life notes with Calypso.

For more than four decades, the self-described "contrary farmer" and writer Gene Logsdon has commented on the state of American agriculture. In Letter to a Young Farmer, his final book of essays, Logsdon addresses the next generation-young people who are moving back to the land to enjoy a better way of life as small-scale "garden farmers." It's a lifestyle that isn't defined by accumulating wealth or by the "get big or get out" agribusiness mindset. Instead, it's one that recognizes the beauty of nature, cherishes the land, respects our fellow creatures, and values rural traditions. It's one that also looks forward and embraces "right technologies," including new and innovative ways of working smarter, not harder, and avoiding premature burnout. Completed only a few weeks before the author's death, Letter to a Young Farmer is a remarkable testament to the life and wisdom of one of the greatest rural philosophers and writers of our time. Gene's earthy wit and sometimes irreverent humor combines with his valuable perspectives on many wide-ranging subjects-everything from how to show a ram who's boss to enjoying the almost churchlike calmness of a well-built livestock barn. Reading this book is like sitting down on the porch with a neighbor who has learned the ways of farming through years of long observation and practice. Someone, in short, who has "seen it all" and has much to say, and much to teach us, if we only take the time to listen and learn. And Gene Logsdon was the best kind of teacher: equal parts storyteller, idealist, and rabble-rouser. His vision of a nation filled with garden farmers, based in cities, towns, and countrysides, will resonate with many people, both young and old, who long to create a more sustainable, meaningful life for themselves and a better world for all of us.

Conventional wisdom says to garden from the bottom up, turning over the soil every spring until your back aches. Ironically, this does such a good job aerating that gardeners spend the rest of the season pulling weeds and replacing the suddenly energized (and easily used up) nutrients. Mother nature, on the other hand, gardens from the top down-layering undisturbed soil with leaves and other organic materials. In following this example and synthesizing the work of other perceptive gardeners, Lee Reich presents a compelling new system called weedless gardening.
"The Weedless Garden" is good for plants and it's good for people. It protects the soil, contributes to plant health, reduces water needs, cuts down on a gardener's labor, encourages earthworms and, of course, mitigates weed problems by keeping the seeds dormant. Four basic tenets form the system's backbone-minimize soil disruption; protect soil surface; avoid soil compaction; use drip irrigation-and the way to get there is simple. For a new bed or established garden, layering is key, and the perfect material to use is also among the most common-newspaper. Add organic mulch and compost on top, and plants are growing in rich, self-generating humus. From vegetable gardening to flower gardens to planting trees, shrubs, and vines, "The Weedless Garden" works everywhere-allowing the gardener to work quite a bit less.

Free Plants!

From Simple Seed-Saving Techniques

Here's all the information and guidance you need to start saving seeds from your favorite vegetables, herbs, and flowers and grow even more plants next year.

Dozens of at-a-glance charts and over 300 step-by-step illustrations show you how to determine when seeds are ready for harvest, how to collect them, and how to store them. Plus, you get time-proven tips, the kind that only an experienced horticulturalist can share, for starting seeds right.

Seed Sowing and Saving is packed with solid advice and information that teaches you how to:

* Successfully harvest seeds from more than 100 common vegetables, annuals, perennials, herbs, and wildflowers

* Dry and store seeds, and test seeds for viability

* Sow seeds indoors to get a head start on the growing season

* Prepare soil and garden beds for transplants or direct sowing

Shade is one of the most common garden problems homeowner's face, but with the right plant knowledge, you can triumph over challenging areas and learn to embrace shade as an opportunity instead of an obstacle. Glorious Shade celebrates the benefits of shade and shows you how to make the most of it. This information-rich, hardworking guide is packed with everything you need to successfully garden in the shadiest corners of a yard. You'll learn how to determine what type of shade you have and how to choose the right plants for the space. The book also shares the techniques, design and maintenance tips that are key to growing a successful shade garden. Stunning colour photographs offer design inspiration and reveal the beauty of shade-loving plants.

"For Northeastern gardeners--all of whom battle the serious problem that is deer browsing--this is definitely one for the library." --GardenRant The benefits of native plants are plentiful--less upkeep, more pollinators, and a better environment. In Deer-Resistant Native Plants for the Northeast, Ruth Rogers Clausen and Gregory D. Tepper provide a list of native plants that have one more benefit--they are proven to help prevent your garden from becoming a deer buffet. From annuals and perennials to grasses and shrubs, every suggested plant includes a deer-resistance rating, growing advice, companion species, and the beneficial wildlife the plant does attract. Let these beautiful natives help your landscape flourish! For gardeners in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, DC.

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.

Gardeners across the nation are seeing clear signs of trouble in their home gardens, no matter the size-like many aspects of life on our warming planet, gardening practices need updates. In the Southeast, gardeners are under pressure to deal with increasing weather extremes, shifting hardiness zones, and seasonal unpredictability. Such environmental conditions are increasingly tough on plants as well as insects, pollinators, birds, and mammals. In this lively and heartening guide, Barbara J. Sullivan offers an essential, easy-to-use resource for adapting to the new realities of climate change. This book will empower southerners to grow beautiful gardens while using gardening practices that contribute to solutions for our shared environment. Surveys the science behind climate change and gardening Covers USDA hardiness zones 5a to 9b, which include thirteen southeastern states Gives advice on planning and installing gardens that will not only thrive but also help address critical environmental challenges Covers key topics ranging from designing a climate-friendly garden that will attract songbirds and pollinators to weaning off gas-powered tools to using water wisely Features a wealth of color illustrations, charts, and tables brimming with recommended native plants for the region

"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."

The complete home reference for everything you need to know about gardening--from soil and fertilizers to planting and landscaping--is now available in a convenient, compact size. Charmingly illustrated with 1,000 illustrations and photographs, Garden Wisdom & Know-How is packed with must-have information including techniques for maintaining a garden year-round; harvesting herbs; designing by bloom season; turning garden refuse into garden rewards; building teepees, trellises, and other plant supports; and much more. Chapters are organized into topics such as garden techniques and tricks; the flower garden; the edible garden; container gardening; garden design and landscaping; and attracting wildlife. With nearly 1,000 pages of indispensable information from the editors of Rodale Gardening Books, Garden Wisdom & Know-How is a comprehensive guide for both the novice and experienced gardener.

The Gardener Says invites readers to a festive garden party where guests ranging from Gertrude Jekyll and Henry David Thoreau, to Michelle Obama and Michael Pollan share their insights and words of inspiration. Ranging from the humorous to the poignant, these quotes from gardeners, poets, philosophers, and landscape designers highlight both the joys and challenges of gardening-the exhaustion at the end of a long day's work, the satisfaction of seeing a flower blossom, the peace and happiness of time spent in quiet contemplation. A delightful hobby, a potent tool for ecological and social transformation, and a crucial reminder of our place in nature, gardening is, in the words of Mirabel Osler, the one occupation where "if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling."

An enchanting guide for turning the art of gardening into opportunities for reflection and meditation. Contemplative Gardening makes the connection between tending to the earth and tending to our own souls, between caring for the planet and caring for one another. Pamela Dolan explores the myriad relationships between all living things that come to light when we dig in the soil. Whether you're an experienced gardener or one just beginning, you will be fed by this intersection of food and faith.

The Botanical Bible is an elegant and comprehensive introduction to the beauty, diversity, and value of the botanical world. Author Sonya Patel Ellis covers the evolution of the plant kingdom, the history of horticulture, basic botany, and more. Readers will learn not only how to garden and forage in six major climate zones but also how to make the most of their harvest through a series of recipes for savory dishes, sweets, and drinks. Ellis demonstrates how to use botanicals for beauty and health, with instructions for making essential oils, herbal remedies, floral scents, and natural cosmetics--and even explores the world of botanical artistry and crafts. Gorgeously illustrated throughout, and packed with information and hands-on projects, The Botanical Bible is the ultimate guide for aspiring gardeners, botanists, homesteaders, and anyone seeking a more meaningful relationship with nature.

The Well-Tended Perennial Garden has proven to be one of the most useful tools a gardener can have. Gardeners everywhere have benefited from its trusty advice, reassuring tone, and helpful illustrations. Now this completely revised third edition introduces a new generation of gardeners to Tracy DiSabato-Aust's proven techniques. Along with thorough details on the essential practices of perennial care, the new edition includes new species and cultivars, on-trend garden design advice, and new photographs and illustrations. There is also an increased focus on native plants and gardening for wildlife.

This simple book is packed with information on hydroponic gardening. The graphic color and layout and design help to guide a hydroponic gardener from basic plant science and environment to purchasing a garden and appropriate supplies. Plans for making your own hydroponic garden, nutrient deficiencies, plant problems, and growing a garden beginning to end are all included in this invaluable guide.

Are you facing drought or water shortages? Gardening with Less Water offers simple, inexpensive, low-tech techniques for watering your garden much more efficiently - using up to 90% less water for the same results. With illustrated step-by-step instructions, David Bainbridge shows you how to install buried clay pots and pipes, wicking systems, and other porous containers that deliver water directly to a plant's roots with no or minimal evaporation. These systems are available at hardware stores and garden centres; are easy to set up and use; and work for garden beds, container gardens, and trees.