This fully revised edition of Kevin Handreck s classic best-seller contains a wealth of information for practical gardeners. It will enable you to improve the worst of soils, choose the best fertilizer for particular plants and minimize water use. It also contains a comprehensive guide to managing potted plants. Here also are the basics of soil, composting, fertilisers and potting mixes, as well as simple tests and colour guides to nutrient deficiencies. Gardening Down-Under covers much practical information left out by other gardening books. Features* Practical information on soils, potting mixes and fertilisers * How to deal with dead plants, mulch and compost * Information on water usage * Key issues for gardening in pots"

This beautiful collection of poetry and prose through the seasons rhapsodises on the spectacle of colour and everything green and flourishing in the garden. The perfect book for a moment's reflection, whether you are cooped up on a rainy day in your potting shed or admiring the fruits of your labour on a sunny evening from the pergola.

How many times when we are visiting gardens, or thumbing through a glossy magazine, do we look at our own garden with mixed feelings of disappointment and despair, and exclaim 'Why can`t my garden look like that?'. The simple answer is `it can`. This book demonstrates just how easy it is to make adjustments to what is already there to make your garden stunning, whatever its size. Whether it's an issue with design, plant selection or pruning - or even lack of time - simple solutions are described in clear, jargon-free language that will appeal both to the complete novice and those with more experience. Written in an informal, easy-to-read style this book will enable everyone to have a garden they can be proud of.

This title features: over 50 glorious gifts and ideas to create from the natural produce grown in your own garden; how to create a wonderful variety of practical and ornamental garden items, both for your garden and as gifts for fellow enthusiasts; over 50 ideas, gifts and projects, illustrated step by step with beautiful photographs; create lovely decorative items like customized garden furniture and containers, painted pots, a decoupage seed box, and a lavender and herb garland. Try making useful tools and accessories such as a gardener's first aid kit, citronella candles, hand-painted plant labels and fruit-picking bags. It includes a seasonal checklist of activities, and planting practicalities such as growing from seed and potting on, to keep you busy in the potting shed through the year. This book takes its inspiration from the potting shed, the practical refuge that provides the perfect space in which to enjoy the potential of your garden. Here are dozens of projects to make, from decorated gift boxes and themed plant baskets to all manner of ornamental garden accessories. Ideas include items that you'll be tempted to keep for yourself, as well as for gifts any gardener would be delighted to receive, such as candle holders, a plant theatre, and a potted Mediterranean herb garden. All the projects are shown with easy-to-follow instructions. With over 350 glorious photographs by well-known, award-winning photographer, Michelle Garrett, this book captures and celebrates the creative spirit of gardening.

This book is aimed at garden lovers and anyone keen to turn their gardening talent into a business. It's for those who, while stuck in an office, have always dreamed of making a living outdoors, for second career-ers who have a flair for gardening and want a job that makes them happy and for anyone who would like to combine a love of plants of gardens with the freedom of being their own boss. Uniquely, the book looks at the diverse opportunities that exist in gardening, from running a nursery to building a garden maintenance business, and from training to be a landscape designer to writing about gardening for a living. Taking the reader through how to pursue each type of business successfully, it looks at everything from researching the competition, training and internships, to how to get your first job, develop a network and grow the business.As well as all the practical information required to start a gardening business, this essential guide profiles 20 individuals and tells their inspiring stories - from the doctor who became a garden designer and whose work ended up on national television, to the high-flying fashion director who gave up the rat race to make a living from growing traditional roses. Packed with advice, tips and resources, this book offers everything you need to start your own successful gardening business.

Discover the joys of gardening using traditional plants and planting methods that have withstood the test of time. Create and maintain a garden filled with hues and scents of old-fashioned plants. This book includes everything from natural horticultural methods of propagation, soil fertilization, care and cultivation, to period garden design and layout. This is an absorbing reference for all those wishing to garden the traditional way.

Includes: habitat, heigt and spread plant features and flower colors information on soil, light and water tips on how to best use the plant in your garden recommended species for Minnesota and Wisconsin gardens

Tending our gardens is a lifelong pleasure. As we age, our energy and physical abilities become more limited. But gardens are magical, evolving places, with the potential to keep us young at heart, physically fit, out in the fresh air and full to the brim with joy and expectation. This ground-breaking book shows how easy it is for older people to carry on gardening. The different kinds of garden set-up are considered first, along with planning decisions and how best to keep safe and comfortable. An informative chapter looks at the main gardening activities and appropriate equipment, especially those that answer physical limitations. Different styles of garden are then presented: flower, vegetable, fruit, raised, herb, patio, vertical and indoor gardens, each one including projects and techniques, from building a raised bed to growing potatoes in containers. The final chapter is a directory that profiles the many planting choices available. Packed with projects, garden plans and step-by-step sequences designed for older gardeners who may not be able to exert themselves in the same way as they once could, this will appeal to active gardeners in their early retirement through to seniors with more limited abilities, and show how gardening can be a lifelong pleasure.

This concise book follows the journey of this quintessentially great British invention, often thought never worthy of a picture, and celebrates the mundane with its fascinating history, aided by unique pictures rarely seen before. From lawnmowers that manicured the gardens of great palaces to those that groomed the hallowed turf of Wembley, Wimbledon and golf courses and cricket grounds around the world, this book features a variety of machines and their stories. Also included are significant examples such as the first lawnmower and the fastest, as well as some 'Lawnmowers of the Rich and Famous.' This unique book follows the story from before the invention of animal-powered grass cutting machinery and the internal combustion engine up to the present-day robot mowers and into the future.

One of our finest writers on one of her greatest loves.Jamaica Kincaid's first garden in Vermont was a plot in the middle of her front lawn. There, to the consternation of more experienced friends, she planted only seeds of the flowers she liked best. In My Garden (Book): she gathers all she loves about gardening and plants, and examines it generously, passionately, and with sharp, idiosyncratic discrimination. Kincaid's affections are matched in intensity only by her dislikes. She loves spring and summer but cannot bring herself to love winter, for it hides the garden. She adores the rhododron Jane Grant, and appreciates ordinary Blue Lake string beans, but abhors the Asiatic lily. The sources of her inspiration -- seed catalogues, the gardener Gertrude Jekyll, gardens like Monet's at Giverny -- are subjected to intense scrutiny. She also examines the idea of the garden on Antigua, where she grew up. My Garden (Book): is an intimate, playful, and penetrating book on gardens, the plants that fill them, and the persons who tend them.

This is a practical gardener's guide for animal lovers, including planting advice, designs and 90 step-by-step projects, with 1700 photographs. Turn your garden into a wildlife haven by growing the right plants to encourage beneficial insects, aquatic life, birds and animals. It includes illustrated directories of over 200 plant species, from annuals to climbers, with practical advice on cultivation and uses, plus 80 of the most common garden bird species, with identification illustrations and natural history information on distribution, size, distinguishing characteristics, behaviour, nesting, eggs and feeding habits. It includes practical step-by-step projects that show you how to make all kinds of birdhouses, bird tables, birdbaths, wildlife stacks and more. It features all the basic gardening techniques such as plant propagation, soil preparation, composting and general maintenance. Itis illustrated throughout with over 1700 practical colour artworks and photographs. One of the most enjoyable aspects of creating and maintaining a garden lies in the feeling of closeness to nature. Now, with this new book box set, you can encourage hidden birds, animal and insects to proliferate in your very own back garden. These two books, written by award-winning gardening experts, give clear advice on how to create a range of wildlife gardens, showing how adopting a few simple methods will produce a dazzling display of colour while helping native animal species. There are suggestions for the best flowers, shrubs, hedges and trees to attract birds, including a design for a garden border that will provide food throughout the seasons. Comprehensive directories explore over 200 beautiful garden plants, plus over 80 of the most common birds, insects and animals, from woodland and countryside locations to town and city environments. With its helpful practical advice and over 1700 photographs and illustrations, this is the ideal source book for gardeners, bird lovers and wildlife enthusiasts.

Winner of the National Trust Outdoor Book of the Year 2011 The story of one man's unlikely quest to create out of a mountainous Welsh landscape a garden fit for inclusion in the prestigious Yellow Book - the 'Gardens of England and Wales Open for Charity' guide - in just one year. The son of two passionate gardeners, Antony Woodward was born with chlorophyll running through his veins. Unfortunately, growing up with Latin plant names took its toll, and he was ingrained early on with a profound loathing of both gardens and gardening. Buying Tair-ffynnon, a derelict smallholding 1,300 feet up in the Black Mountains of Wales, changed everything. Hooked by its beauty - when not buried in cloud - Woodward battles to meet the strict requirements of the famous 'Yellow Book' in this unlikely terrain. He finds himself driven by apparently inexplicable compulsions: wood chopping, hauling a 20-tonne railway carriage up a mountain, even beekeeping. Soon, his voyage along the rocky path to his own patch of paradise takes on a more personal tenor as he unearths the deep roots linking gardening and his childhood in this warm, funny and unlikely memoir. Beautifully written and effortlessly engaging, 'The Garden in the Clouds' is a compelling read for anyone who has ever gardened - or ever dreamt of doing so.

Handy guide is packed with the best plant varieties you'll want for your garden: annula, perennials, trees and shrubs, vines, roses, bulbs, ornamental grasses and herbs.

Between 1850 and 1880, Americans of all ranks and circumstances planted shade trees, cultivated flower gardens, and established lawns with a newfound enthusiasm that both astonished and delighted horticultural advocates. For Shade and For Comfort explores this unprecedented burst of horticultural interest, and documents its influence on Midwestern domestic landscapes. Drawing upon a wide range of largely unexplored resources including lithographic images of farm, village, and city homes; agricultural society records; nursery and seed catalogues; and the diaries and letters of local residents, this innovative study examines how advocates encouraged ornamental plant interest, and then considers the significance of trees and flowers for their mid-nineteenth-century promoters and for the people who planted and nurtured them. From these diverse perspectives, ornamental plants emerge as densely layered cultural symbols offering not only a very real touch of shade or beauty, but for many, a sense of security and comfort amidst a rapidly changing American society. With its careful portrayal of actual ornamental plant use, its examination of nineteenth-century horticultural advice literatur