It all began when Simon Griffiths decided that he and his whippet couldn't live in his tiny but gorgeous one-up one-down shopfront in Melbourne any more. He had a yearning for open spaces, country air and, most importantly, a garden of his own. On finding his cottage in Meadowbank, just outside Sydney, and trialling different plants, he gradually became part of the secret gardening network - the one where cuttings are exchanged between friends, and planting successes and failures are recounted over neighbourhood fences. Simon is a brilliant photographer, bringing warmth and joy to all his subjects, but he is also a very knowledgeable plantsman. In this book he has captured his favourite twenty country-style gardens and shares the knowledge he has gleaned from fellow garden lovers.

Everything cultivated begins with a seed, and with more than 50,000 copies sold, Rodale's The New Seed Starters Handbook has been the source for expert information on raising healthy seedlings since its release in 1988. This revised version of the staple seed book is an easy-to-use reference that gives readers the most up-to-date information on how to start seeds successfully and grow their favorite plants from year to year. The New Seed Starters Handbook presents step- by-step guides to starting plants from seed, which allows for earlier harvests, greater variety, and healthier seedlings. It a Iso presents an encyclopedia of more than 200 plants-including vegetables and fruits, garden flowers, wildflowers, herbs, trees, and shrubs-with details on how to start each from seed. This is the perfect guide for gardeners of every level -from novice to veteran.

First published in 1929, The Gardener’s Bed-Book is a much beloved gardening classic by the renowned editor of House & Garden magazine in the 1920s and ’30s. Each of its 365 perfectly sized little essays is meant to be read in bed at night after a long day’s work, either real or imagined, in the garden. A charming and mischievously funny companion to curl up with, Wright ranges comfortably—and lyrically—from giving gardening advice to meditating on such topics as antique collecting and travel, great literature and architecture. He is an addictive delight, as memorable describing the challenges of growing plume poppies as he is the simple pleasure of hanging up the dish towel once the housework is done. Written in language that is as timeless as it is seductive, The Gardener’s Bed-Book will appeal to gardening experts and armchair enthusiasts alike.

This Modern Library edition is published with a new Introduction by Dominique Browning, the editor in chief of House & Garden and author of Around the House and in the Garden and the forthcoming Paths of Desire: The Passions of a Suburban Gardener.

Ever since she was old enough to help her grandmother in the garden, Sharon Lovejoy has spent her life working with plants--and along the way, through "trowel and error," she's accumulated hundreds and hundreds of remedies, tips, short-cuts, and cure-alls. Now Ms. Lovejoy--author of "Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots" and the award-winning "Sunflower Houses"--does for the garden what Heloise or the Queen of Clean does for the household. "Trowel and Error" collects all of her homespun garden advice into an inviting, environmentally friendly, whimsically illustrated yet dead-on helpful book that will benefit every gardener, beginner or experienced.
Cure plant viruses with spoiled milk. Steep a natural and effective insecticide out of fresh basil. Place flat stones under squash or melons to hasten ripening. Recycle an old apple corer as the perfect dibber for muscari and other small bulbs. Start rosemary cuttings in a green glass bottle. Sprinkle baby powder over seedlings to discourage rabbits. Crush a garlic clove and apply it to your skin as an insect repellent. From urging the reader to take an occasional shower with the houseplants to giving all-natural gardenside first aid, "Trowel and Error" is a direct line to the kind of practical wisdom that comes only after a lifetime of experience. The book is indexed by problem, plant, pest, and solution, and includes a list of tools and common household items--borax, cornmeal, vinegar--that completes the gardener's arsenal.