Explore ideas, consider the big questions and learn life lessons in your garden. Gardening is an innately thoughtful as well as practical pastime: planning ahead, imagining how plants will grow, deciding what will make a 'good' garden, wondering at the beauty of flowers and noticing how ecosystems work. This delightful and engaging collection of essays illustrate how many philosophical ideas arise naturally in gardeners' everyday work. Growers by their nature are in fact already philosophers: existentialists who try to live and work by their own rules in a garden; stoics who put up with slug damage again and again, and try to work in harmony with nature; and practical quantum scientists who witness incredible processes going on in plant cells beneath the ground. In Philosophy for Gardeners, Kate Collyns uses aspects of gardening to introduce and explore a range of philosophical ideas and schools of thought; cultivating a greater understanding and appreciation of intriguing concepts, propagated from science, evolution and aesthetics through to politics, economics and ethics. Broken into four sections, Soil, Growth, Harvest and Cycles, each section explores questions of philosophy through the lens of the garden. A fascinating read, this book is as perfect for students of philosophy as it is for gardeners, filled with thought-provoking reflections on life, being and existence.

This early work is an absorbing read and thoroughly recommended for the shelf of any horticulturalist. It contains much information that is still useful and practical today. Contents Include: Introduction to Plant Life; Apple and Pear Enterprise; Peach, Plum, and Cherry Enterprises; Strawberry enterprise; Grape Enterprise; Bush-Fruit Enterprises; Home Vegetable Gardens; Tomato, Eggplant, and Pepper Enterprises; Melon, corn, Bean, and Okra Enterprises; Onion-Group Enterprises; Beets and Other Root Crops; Asparagus Enterprise; Rhubarb Enterprise; Horseradish, Sea Kale, and Artichokes Enterprise; Celery Enterprise; Lettuce Enterprise; Cole Crop Enterprises; Cooked and Salad Enterprises; Enterprise with Garden Peas; Woodland Enterprise; Improvement Enterprises. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This early work is a fascinating read for any gardener or historian of gardening, but also contains much information that is useful and practical today. Forming a complete how-to guide it is thoroughly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of the gardening enthusiast. Contents Include: Calcareous Soils and their Situation and Types; The Improvement and Maintenance of Calcareous Soils; The Flower Garden; Bulbous Plants; The Lawn; Roses; Trees and Shrubs; The Rock Garden; The Fruit Garden; The Vegetable Garden; Growing Calcifuges in a Calcareous Garden; In Calcareous Gardens. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

INTRODUCTION: AGRICULTURE has been defined by the Bishop of Newcastle as A controversy with weeds. The growth of weeds certainly constitutes one of the chief troubles of the tiller of the soil, for weeds are too often luxuriant where a good cultivated crop is awaited. The average farmer is quite familiar with the ordinary tillage operations which conduce to clean farming, and the gardener is able by intense cultivation to keep down weeds, but there are many methods which may be successfully employed in combating a given species which are not generally known. The agricultural Press testifies almost daily to the fact that information on the best means of eradicating weeds is badly needed by all concerned in the growth of crops, and I have long been convinced that the subject was deserving of special treatment. Careful thought quickly crystallised into the idea that a volume dealing with weeds and their destruction, and summarising under one cover the information scattered in many volumes published in this and other countries, would be of practical value. I hope, therefore, that the following pages will supply a real need, and prove useful to all engaged in the various branches of agriculture. It would be a great pleasure to me should the critic complain that the use of the word Common in the title of this volume is misplaced, as one of the artists, who experienced some difficulty in obtaining certain species for illustration, humorously suggested The term, however, appears to fit the text. In the third week of August of the past year, when examining a field of standing wheat, I spent about ten minutes collecting such weeds as were most easily found within an area of perhaps little morethan 100 square yards. In this small plot were quickly gathered the following twenty-nine species, eighteen of which were already illustrated for the pages of this book Convolvulus arvemis Senecio vulgar is Polygonum Convolvulus Galium Aparine Polygonum Aviculare Vicia sativa Matricaria inodora Rumex sp. Tussilago Farfara Plantago major Mentha arvensis Lychnis alba Sinapis arvensis Euphorbia exigua Sonchus arvensis Stellaria media Alopecurus agrestis Agrostis sp. Papaver sp. Ranunculus arvensis Triticum repens Poa annua Viola sp. Veronica sp. Potentilla Anserina Myosotis sp. sEthusa Cynapium Scandix Pecten- Veneris Alchemilla arvensis Most of these species are troublesome weeds, and it may be added that those marked with an asterisk were abundant. In a wheat field in which the crop was already cut were found thirteen species of weeds, several being serious pests and in a field of peas was an almost overwhelming quantity of Field Bindweed Convolvulus arvensis, Black Bindweed Polygonum Convolvulus, and Perennial Sow Thistle Sonchns arvensis, besides many other weeds...

This early work is an absorbing read for any amateur or professional gardener. Contents Include: Preface; Introductory; The Cultivation of Herbs; The Harvesting of Herbs; The Drying of Herbs; Uses of Herbs; Herb Gardens and Farms; and Short Notes on Individual Herbs arranged alphabetically. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This early work is a fascinating read for any amateur or professional horticulturalist or historian of the profession, but it contains much information that is still useful and practical today. Contents Include: Foreword; Acknowledgements; Plants and Their Environment; Aspects of Soil Cultivation; The Principles of Plant Nutrition; Soils for Special Purposes; The Plant in Relation to Light, Air, and Temperature; The Life-Story of Garden Plants; Flowers and Fruits; Pruning and Training; Vegetative Propagation; The Different Forms of Garden Plants; The Plant in Sickness; Classifying and Naming Plants. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Design the garden of your dreams with the expertise of award-winning garden designer Pollyanna Wilkinson.

How to Design A Garden shows you how to untap your garden’s potential and customise the design to suit you and your space: whether that be an extension of your living space for parties and al fresco dining or a calming oasis to relax in.

Equipped with all you need to know about light, focal points, hardscaping, and planting, you’ll have the skills to create a moodboard, design layout, choose paving, furniture, and plant combinations. Polly expertly guides you to understand how the elements in your garden will work together as one – and she is not shy to share her opinions on certain design dos and don'ts!

Once you’ve designed your garden, month-by-month growing guides help you to nurture it, so you can enjoy your dream space for years to come.

'Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature' IRISH TIMES Thirty-four years ago, when they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine's ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the land itself threatened by the arrival of turbines just one farm over, Niall and Christine decided to document a year of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.