Public Gardens and Livable Cities changes the paradigm for how we conceive of the role of urban public gardens. Donald A. Rakow, Meghan Z. Gough, and Sharon A. Lee advocate for public gardens as community outreach agents that can, and should, partner with local organizations to support positive local agendas. Safe neighborhoods, quality science education, access to fresh and healthy foods, substantial training opportunities, and environmental health are the key initiative areas the authors explore as they highlight model successes and instructive failures that can guide future practices. Public Gardens and Livable Cities uses a prescriptive approach to synthesize a range of public, private, and nonprofit initiatives from municipalities throughout the country. In doing so, the authors examine the initiatives from a practical perspective to identify how they were implemented, their sustainability, the obstacles they encountered, the impact of the initiatives on their populations, and how they dealt with the communities' underlying social problems. By emphasizing the knowledge and skills that public gardens can bring to partnerships seeking to improve the quality of life in cities, this book offers a deeper understanding of the urban public garden as a key resource for sustainable community development.

This book is a comprehensive gardening book for the high desert regions with emphasis on growing vegetables. The author also discusses various aspects of fruit tree culture in the high desert and drought-tolerant perennials, shrubs and tress.

Contents - Foreword - Introduction - List of Plates- - I Greenhouse and Plant Frames - 2 The Garden Room or Annex - 3 Bottle Gardening - 4 Ventilating, Watering, Feeding and Potting - 5 Methods of Propagation - 6 Warm Greenhouse (Stove) Plants - 7 Cool Greenhouse Plants (Soft-wooded) - 8 Hard-wooded Greenhouse Plants - 9 Annuals for the Cool Greenhouse - 10 Cacti and Other Free-flowering Succulents - 11 Attractive Greenhouse Climbers - 12 Greenhouse Plants which grow from Bulbs, Corms and Rhizomes - 13 Free-flowering Orchids for the Beginner - 14 Greenhouse Plants with Attractive Berries - 15 Ornamental-leaved Plants (including Ferns) - 16 Forcing Hardy Plants - 17 Colourful Plants for the Unheated Greenhouse - 18 Pests, Diseases and Insecticides - Index - Preface - Professor of Botany - I have written this book for the benefit of those who wish to grow suitable plants to provide flowers in a greenhouse or conservatory or to use for room decoration, during all seasons of the year. Plants which do not flower freely and are not of great decorative value have been omitted, and only those which I have found to be ideal for the purpose have been dealt with in this book. There is a vast number of greenhouse plants to be seen in botanical gardens and large private establishments, but only a limited number are offered for sale by nurserymen. From these plant catalogues, which they issue free of charge, I have selected the most decorative kinds and have given the fullest details of their cultivation. Therefore, by choosing plants from the "lists of flowering plants for every season of the year" given on p. 203, it will be found possible to provide a continuous display of flowers in the heated or unheated greenhouse. I am indebted to Messrs. T. Bath & Co., Ltd., Greenhouse Specialists, 14 Norwood Road, Herne Hill, London, S.E. 24, for supplying the photographs of types of greenhouses, ventilators and heating appliances. I am also grateful to Dr. A. J. Willis, Reader in Botany in the University of Bristol, for advice and assistance in the preparation of this book. G. F. GARDINER

When Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates moved into a duplex in a run-down part of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the tenth-of-an-acre lot was barren ground and bad soil, peppered with broken pieces of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The two friends got to work designing what would become not just another urban farm, but a "permaculture paradise" replete with perennial broccoli, paw paws, bananas, and moringa--all told, more than two hundred low-maintenance edible plants in an innovative food forest on a small city lot. The garden--intended to function like a natural ecosystem with the plants themselves providing most of the garden's needs for fertility, pest control, and weed suppression--also features an edible water garden, a year-round unheated greenhouse, tropical crops, urban poultry, and even silkworms.

In telling the story of Paradise Lot, Toensmeier explains the principles and practices of permaculture, the choice of exotic and unusual food plants, the techniques of design and cultivation, and, of course, the adventures, mistakes, and do-overs in the process. Packed full of detailed, useful information about designing a highly productive permaculture garden, Paradise Lot is also a funny and charming story of two single guys, both plant nerds, with a wild plan: to realize the garden of their dreams and meet women to share it with. Amazingly, on both counts, they succeed.

Step outdoors and let your space nourish all of your senses and settle a busy mind. Discover how to garden to enliven all five senses - touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste - to build a connection with the world around you and bring joy and wonder into the everyday. Find out how simply being outside can help to ground and calm you, and learn what plants to grow to nourish both your mental and physical wellbeing. Ideas on planting and maintaining your garden, which you can put into practice quickly and easily, show how you can improve the sensory enjoyment of your outside space - no matter where you live and no matter what size your plot. Whether you want to fill a space with an uplifting fragrance, create a calming colour scheme, grow richly aromatic herbs, or select trees and shrubs for their soothing sounds, you can turn your plot into a sensory delight as a way to connect to the natural world around you.

Gardeners who suppose that planning a water-saving garden means giving up brilliant color and the lush beauty of Hawai'i's tropicals are in for a surprise. Now Hawai'i's gardeners can save water through applying xeriscape techniques and have gardens filled with exceptional plants that are not only "less thirsty" but provide the garden with shade, color, and fragrance, as well as exotic foliage and blooms. In Plants for the Tropical Xeriscape, two of Hawai'i's foremost plant experts, Rauch and Weissich, guide both novice and experienced gardeners in choosing the perfect drought-tolerant plants for Hawai'i's gardens. In this extensive and lavishly illustrated guide to the selection of tropical landscape materials for xeriscape gardens, Rauch and Weissich provide landscape architects, garden designers, and home gardeners with the ultimate guide to the "less thirsty" landscape plant species which form the tropical xeriscape. Organized in accordance with their use in the landscape,each plant category, from ground covers to large trees, is then further listed alphabetically by genus and illustrated with beautiful photographs of a full range of moderate to strong drought-tolerant species. Logical and easy to use, this garden guide will be appreciated by all plant lovers from home gardeners to professional landscape designers. With over 1300 color illustrations, Plants for the Tropical Xeriscape is the go-to source for Hawai'i's gardeners as they design, plant, and maintain watersaving gardens.

The story of how Francis Pryor created a haven for people, plants and wildlife in a remote corner of the fens. A Fenland Garden is the story of the creation of a garden in a complex and fragile English landscape - the Fens of southern Lincolnshire - by a writer who has a very particular relationship with landscape and the soil, thanks to his distinguished career as an archaeologist and discoverer of some of England's earliest field systems. It describes the imagining, planning and building of a garden in an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile place, and the challenges, setbacks and joys these processes entail. This is a narrative of the making of a garden, but it is also about reclaiming a patch of ground for nature and wildlife - of repairing the damage done to a small slice of Fenland landscape by decades of intensive farming. A Fenland Garden is informed by the empirical wisdom of a practising gardener (and archaeologist) and by his deep understanding of the soil, landscape and weather of the region; Francis's account of the development of the garden is counterpointed by fascinating nuggets of Fenland lore and history, as well as by vignettes of the plantsman's trials and tribulations as he works an exceptionally demanding plot of land. Above all, this is the story of bringing something beautiful into being; of embedding a garden in the local landscape; and thereby of deepening and broadening the idea of home.

An exhaustive exposition of propagating methods, from growing from seed to cuttings, grafting, layering, and tissue culture. It is based on the actual working methods of successful propagators worldwide and presents detailed explanations and illustrations of the procedures used. This book is only available through print on demand. All interior art is black and white.

John Harris, head gardener at Tresillian Estate in Cornwall, imparts his abundance of horticulture knowledge, specifically focusing on how to garden using the moon's cycles. Humans and the world around us have been governed by the waxing and waning of the moon since the planet came into being. Over the centuries different civilizations have embraced these natural cycles, and so lunar gardening has been around for as long as man has pulled food from the soil; once practiced by the Incas and Native Americans, this tried and trusted method has been largely forgotten. John Harris, head gardener at Tresillian Estate in Cornwall, has been using Moon Gardening for over forty years. The methods he uses can be implemented anywhere. You do not need fancy tools, expensive seeds, or substantial acreage; instead, you simply need time, patience, and care to create breath-taking results. This is gardening at its most natural and organic. The Natural Gardener charts John's story from a rudderless young lad in a Cornish village to being charged with the salvation of the long-neglected gardens at Tresillian. As he shares how to follow the simple principles of moon gardening, he imparts his abundance of horticultural knowledge from years spent working in harmony with the soil, providing a timely link back to nature and the reassuring regularity of the seasons.

Community gardens have been part of the American landscape since the mid-1700s. Today, community gardens continue to make positive contributions in neighborhoods across North Carolina. Winner of an American Society for Horticultural Science, Extension Division, 2017 Educational Materials Award, Collard Greens and Common Ground is a practical guide to community gardening. Based on experience and research, it is packed with best practices, tested strategies, and useful checklists. The guide covers every step in the community gardening process, from starting a new garden to sustainable long-term garden management and policy. Whether you are new to community gardening or a seasoned veteran, Collard Greens and Common Ground will help your community garden flourish.

While Michael Pollan and others have popularized ideas about how growing one's own food can help lead to environmental sustainability, environmental justice activists have pushed for more access to gardens and fresh food in impoverished communities. Now, Robert S. Emmett argues that mid-twentieth-century American garden writing included many ideas that became formative for these contemporary environmental writers and activists. Drawing on ecocriticism, environmental history, landscape architecture, and recent work in environmental justice and food studies, Emmett explores how the language of environmental justice emerged in descriptions of gardening across a variety of literary forms. He reveals early egalitarian associations found in garden writing, despite a popular focus on elite sites such as suburban lawns and formal southern gardens. Cultivating Environmental Justice emphasizes the intergenerational work of gardeners and garden writers who, from the 1930s on, asserted increasingly radical socioeconomic and ecological claims to justice. Emmett considers a wide range of texts by authors including Bernard M'Mahon, Scott and Helen Nearing, Katharine S. White, Elizabeth Lawrence, Alice Walker, and Novella Carpenter.