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Books > Health, Home & Family > Gardening > Specialized gardening methods
A journal with a perpetual diary, a manual of gardening to inform
and inspire, packed with illustrations and an introduction by
Darina Allen of Ballymaloe Cookery School Three quarters Charles's
advice on how to grow great crops, one quarter writing space for
each day. Use it year after year to make the best decisions, with
your notes alongside Charles's suggestions, for future reference.
Advice in the diary section is linked to each week of the season
and takes you through the whole process, from clearing weeds,
feeding soil and sowing to harvests and storing vegetables. *
Advice on sowing and planting methods, plus raising plants at home
* Best sowing dates - seeds neither fail in cold nor start too late
* Advantages of no dig, saving time, giving fewer weeds and bigger
crops * How to maintain control of weeds through timely mulching
and hoeing * How to feed soil just once a year, for strong and
healthy growth * When and how to make all the harvests, with advice
on storing produce too.
Take your garden to the next level—organic, native, and natural!
Permaculture is an important but often misunderstood method of growing
food and building homes in a manner that works with nature, rather than
against it, to create beautiful, healthy, and useful gardens. Blending
ecology, organic agriculture, green home design, appropriate
technology, and biology can be confusing and overwhelming, but
Permaculture for Beginners simplifies this vast field for practical
application. This is a hands-on guide, taking the beginner through each
step of the design process, so that anyone can apply permaculture
principles to their own life. While the principles are simple, the
in-depth topics cover every aspect of permaculture, including:
- Building green homes and passive solar design
- Growing edible plant communities and forest gardens
- Using no-till and natural farming methods
- Creating microclimates for extended growing seasons
- Raising livestock with ecological foraging techniques
- Transforming urban backyards into food-abundant oases
This is a commonsense approach to sustainable living that creates a
self-sufficient and low-effort home for the people that live there,
whether in the city or the country. Permaculture for Beginners isn’t a
philosophy book, or a dissertation on theory. It is a step-by-step,
complete guide to every aspect of permaculture.
In this book, pioneering nurseryman Olivier Filippi offers
low-level planting designs that are eco-friendly and so beautiful
they redefine the conventional distinction between lawn and plant
borders. Inspired by the wild plant communities of Europe, the
Middle East, and the USA, these rigorously trialled plant
combinations can be used on terraces, paths, gravel beds and flower
borders, as well as on areas that are traditionally laid to lawn.
With a plant directory that lists over 200 tough but beautiful dry
garden plants and Filippi's innovative maintenance techniques, this
is the perfect companion to his first book The Dry Gardening
Handbook and will delight all dry garden owners.
This is a story of two brothers, Geoffrey and Bevis, and their
exquisite gardens, Brief and Lunuganga, set in the lush tropical
landscape of Sri Lanka. It begins with a largely photographic
overview of the country's natural features, showing the varied
palette of landscapes that inspired Bawa's sensitive treatment of
architecture. At the very heart of the book is an intimate portrait
of two gloriously detailed gardens and the personalities that
brought them into being. But it is also a story about the nature
and landscape of an island of exceptional beauty. As such, the book
has something to offer followers of Geoffrey Bawa, tropical-garden
enthusiasts and to all those seeking a photographic portrait of Sri
Lanka.
This practical pocket guide includes 194 edible fruits, nuts and seeds,
flowers, greens and vegetables, herbs, roots, whole plants, fungi,
seaweeds and shellfish that you can forage in the UK and Europe.
Each species account includes accurate artworks and concise
descriptions outlining essential details to help you identify species
in the field, as well as information on where you can find species and
helpful tips on how to cook and bake with the food you forage.
The author's introduction offers practical advice on foraging safely
and legally and outlines how to prepare and preserve your foraged
foods, including making mead and jam, drying herbs, storing mushrooms
for later use and how to safely prepare foraged shellfish. The helpful
fold-out poster shows common edible species grouped by season and by
habitat.
A pond serves as a visual focus for any garden whilst providing a
cool oasis where you can get away from it all. This volume gives
you clear, concise advice on how to plan, build and maintain a pond
even in the most modest garden - and without spending a fortune.
Originally published in the 1930s. This comprehensive book will
provide under one head and at a glance all that vast amount of
essential information required by the ever increasing numbers of
enthusiasts who wish to derive pleasure or profit by living off the
land. The illustrated contents include advice on: Poultry -
Vegetable Culture - Fruit Growing - Flower Culture - Holding and
Farm - Pigs - Cattle - Sheep - Land - Rabbit Keeping - Bee Keeping
- Organic Methods etc. Many of the earliest farming books,
particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now
extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are
republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality,
modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Forest Gardening (or agroforestry) is a way of growing edible crops
with nature doing most of the work. A forest garden imitates young
natural woodland, with a wide range of crops grown in vertical
layers. Species are chosen for their beneficial effects on each
other, creating a healthy system that maintains its own fertility,
with little need for digging, weeding or pest control. The result
of this largely perennial planting is a tranquil, beautiful and
productive space. This book is a bible for permaculture and forest
gardening, with practical advice on how to create a forest garden,
from planning and design to planting and maintenance. It explains
how a forest garden is designed from the top down: the canopy layer
first, then the shrub layer, the perennial ground-cover layer, the
annuals & biennials next, the climbers and nitrogen fixers and
finally the clearings, living spaces and paths. Whether in a small
back garden or in a larger plot, the environmental benefits of
growing this way are great. Forest Gardens are a viable solution to
the challenge of a changing climate: we can grow food sustainably
in them without compromising soil health, food quality or
biodiversity. Forest gardens: store carbon dioxide in the soil and
in the woody biomass of the trees and shrubs. enable the soil to
store more water after heavy rains, minimizing flooding and
erosion. boost the health of the ecosystem, ensuring a balance of
predators and beneficial insects because mixed planting is crucial
to the scheme. allows the soil to thrive because it is covered with
plants all year round. Creating a Forest Garden includes a detailed
directory of over 500 trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials,
annuals, root crops and climbers. As well as more familiar plants
such as fig and apple trees, blackcurrants and rosemary shrubs, you
can grow your own chokeberries, goji berries, yams, heartnuts,
bamboo shoots and buffalo currants. Forest gardens produce fruits,
nuts, vegetables, seeds, salads, herbs, spices, firewood,
mushrooms, medicinal herbs, dye plants, soap plants, and honey from
bees. This book tells you everything you need to create your own
forest garden with beautiful illustrations and helpful tips
throughout.
The perfect book for any gardener looking to get back in touch with their wild side.
The rewilding of public spaces and farmland is vitally important to conservation, but how can we support native species and provide rich habitats on our own doorsteps?
In this practical, beautifully illustrated guide horticulturalist and Gardener's World presenter Frances Tophill shows you how to plan and maintain a beautiful garden that will attract bees and birds as well as a throng of unsung garden heroes. Whether you have a small balcony or a large open space, discover the joys of welcoming natural ecosystems back into your garden - along with a host of new visitors.
Professor Franklin Hiram King made important contributions in soil
science -- soil physics and soil fertility in particular. This
book, perhaps the first on sustainable organic agriculture, is of
great interest today, when we are able to assess the truth of what
King stated a hundred years ago. This edition is complete and
unabridged.
In this book, Sharon Amos explains how to design and create a
beautiful garden for little or no money, offering tips on bartering
for clippings, getting a bargain at garage sales or neighbourhood
fairs, digging up suckers or adapting wild species and controlling
them in a garden environment. She provides a comprehensive
directory of 80 plants including detailed advice on where and how
to grow a wide variety of garden favourites, from snowdrops to
poppies. With beautiful illustrations, Plants for Free is the
perfect gift book for cultivating your garden on a budget of
next-to-nothing.
The healthier your plants, the happier you'll feel! A Beginner's
Guide to House Plants teaches you how to bring your indoor spaces
alive with lovely and easy-to-maintain plants -- and how to keep
them healthy. It provides detailed instructions on how you can
unleash the power of plants to energize and relax you, and how to
promote well-being by greening your environment. In this book
you'll find hundreds of useful tips, including: How to select the
right plants for your spaces and lifestyle Practical advice on
purchasing, potting and styling your plants How to care for many
different types of plants--from succulents and ferns to exotics A
mini field guide to over 60 popular plants you should know about
And so much more! Cultivating house plants can be both creative and
fun! Plant expert Ryusuke Sakaino provides tips on how to use
colors, textures, patterns and shapes to create a lush living
space, with one plant or many. His gorgeous photos will inspire you
to add greenery to every room in your home and office. No longer
just a pandemic hobby, plants deserve to be a permanent part of
your lifestyle!
There is something uplifting about having butterflies in your
flowerbeds, frogs in your water feature and birds in your bushes,
and knowing they're there because of you. Rich in detail and
accessible in style, Gardening for Wildlife is the crucial
companion to novices and expert gardeners alike. Adrian Thomas
dispels myths and offers new insights and ideas, helping everyone
understand what to do so gardens, large or small, can become ideal
homes for wildlife. Building on the success of the award-winning
first edition, this expanded and updated edition reflects the
latest research and developments in nature-friendly gardening. The
book serves as an expert guide to the practical aspects of this
rewarding pastime and educates readers about the ecological
principles involved, while exploding commonly held misconceptions
that often deter people from pursuing a kinder approach to
gardening. Adrian Thomas provides a detailed guide to the many and
varied species that can contribute to a natural and healthy garden.
Practical sections help you create entire habitats, such as
woodland and meadow gardens, in your garden. And the massively
expanded catalogue of the top 500 best garden flowers, shrubs and
trees for wildlife, now includes colour photos of every species. If
you love wildlife and want to encourage more to visit your garden,
this inspirational book will help you sow the seeds and reap the
rewards.
Residences occupy a pivotal position in Japanese architecture. As
an extension of the residential space, the Japanese courtyard
garden is unique, featuring symbolic garden elements and designs
that date back to centuries. This book is a collection of more than
30 residential courtyard design works interpreted for the
modern-day home, sometimes extending beyond the traditional defines
of a Japanese courtyard. It not only selects a wealth of pictures,
which shows their visual beauty, but also provides technical
drawings to reflect the design in better detail. The Japanese
courtyard pursues the ultimate in being an area of calm, held in
nature's embrace, where one may reflect and rest in quietude to
contemplate the deeper meaning of life. And every rock arrangement,
tree placement, element/nature symbolised, and even scenery framed
is meticulously thought out to achieve this. This book seeks to
inspire residential and landscape designers to behold nature within
a home with fresh eyes and to let rest old methods as new
connections and perceptions are sought, in order to build a
different kind of residential space that draws on the essence of a
Japanese courtyard.
Douglas W. Tallamy's first book, Bringing Nature Home, sparked a
national conversation about the link between healthy local
ecosystems and human well-being. In his new book Nature's Best
Hope, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a
grassroots approach to conservation. Tallamy advocates for
homeowners everywhere to turn their yards into conservation
corridors that provide wildlife habitats and mitigate the effects
of development and corporate agriculture. This home-based approach
doesn't rely on the federal government and protects the environment
from the whims of politics. It is also easy to do, and readers will
walk away with specific suggestions they can incorporate into their
own yards. Nature's Best Hope is nature writing at its best -
rooted in history, progressive in its advocacy, and above all,
actionable and hopeful. By proposing practical measures that
ordinary people easily can do, Tallamy gives us reason to believe
that the planet can be preserved for future generations.
Martin Crawford is an internationally acknowledged expert on
growing perennial food systems. It features a selection of the 100
best trees to grow. It includes appendices with lists of suitable
trees for specific situations. Martin Crawford has researched and
experimented with tree crops for 25 years and has selected over 100
of the best trees producing fruits, nuts, edible leaves and other
useful products that can be grown in Europe and North America. The
appendices makes choosing trees for your situation easy, with lists
of suitable trees for specific situations plus flow charts to guide
you. If you want to know about and use the large diversity of tree
crops that are available in temperate and continental climates,
then this book is both fascinating and essential reading by an
internationally acknowledged expert.
This inspirational book from Kew's orchid experts reveals the
easiest, most attractive and most popular plants to grow today.
Orchids come from the second largest plant family (with 28,000
members) and have a reputation for diversity and trickiness - but
expert Philip Seaton chooses 60 of the best species to become
permanent and happy members of your home. Through a combination of
12 projects and easy to follow practical advice he shows how to
welcome new plants, to revive their flagging spirits as well as
their basic care and cultivation. He shows how to produce and train
flowers, to collect and sow their seed, and how to plant and
display them in a terrarium, or on bark or in a basket. Find out
when to water them, how to repot them and the ideal room and
conditions that each orchid needs to thrive. The combination of
botanical beauty and practical advice will inspire beginners and
experienced growers to grow new species in many different ways.
This book is from the Kew Experts series, in which the top
gardeners and botanical scientists from Royal Botanic Kew Gardens
offer up advice and information as well as suggesting handy
projects on a range of gardening topics. Other titles include:
Companion to Medicinal Plants, Guide to Growing Bulbs, Guide to
Growing Fruit, Guide to Growing Herbs, Guide to Growing Roses,
Guide to Growing Succulents and Cacti, Guide to Growing Trees,
Guide to Growing Vegetables and Guide to Growing House Plants.
Creative gardening with indigenous plants, now in its second
edition, is an invaluable handbook for South African gardeners. In
this comprehensive guide the authors set out to popularise the use
of indigenous South African plants in gardens, parks, on roadsides
and anywhere where previously exotic plants were preferred. This
book covers more than 300 plants, all illustrated by stunning
photographs in full colour showing the whole plant as well as
selected features such as flowers, fruit, leaves and bark. The text
comprises a description of each plant, its usages - including
medicinal uses and snippets of folklore - and advice on
cultivation. Introductory chapters cover topics such as propagating
plants from seeds and cuttings, gardening in the different climate
regions, and using indigenous plants to attract birds and insects
to the garden. Taking a very practical approach, using symbols,
distribution maps, plant size and flower colour, the authors lead
the reader to the correct plant to choose for the application,
whether this be tree, shrub, annual, perennial, climber or
water-loving plant. This all-inclusive book is a must for
gardeners, horticulturists, landscape designers and anyone involved
in the South African nursery industry.
Britain's gardens are a vast, living landscape and the home to
hundreds of species of birds. Learn to pay attention to these
visitors to your own garden or local park and you'll have a
front-row seat to the unfolding drama that is the garden bird's
year. As dawn breaks across your back garden, if you were paying
attention, you would notice that the robin and the blackbird are
always the first birds to arrive. These ground hunters have large
eyes, so don't mind the dim light of the early morning. And that's
just the beginning of what you can learn watching your own back
garden. Ornithologist Mike Toms has spent a year avidly observing
his own garden, and the result is a comprehensive picture of the
lives of garden birds. From the crowded yet quiet January garden
populated by migratory fieldfares and bramblings, to the riotous
gardens of spring, filled with songbirds competing for mates, the
garden ecosystem changes throughout the year. Learn to spot these
changes, to greet the arrival of the swifts in May and the new crop
of fledgling goldfinches and blackbirds in June, and you'll find a
new world opening up to you. A Garden Bird's Year is the perfect
introduction to this world. Supremely readable, it explains biology
and behaviour to paint a picture of the lives of common bird
species, while also offering practical information for watching and
feeding the birds in your own backyard. Toms details birds'
preferences for particular plants, seeds and feeders, so you can
learn to attract different species to your own garden. He also
charts fascinating recent adaptations - urban birds sleep later
than their rural counterparts, probably because cities are on
average a few degrees warmer, and they sing either earlier or
later, to avoid competing with local traffic; and the balance of
migratory birds to Britain is being affected by the world's
changing climate. Many species of garden birds are threatened, but
there is much that each one of us can do to support them, to
attract them, and to help them thrive through the year.
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