One of House & Garden's book picks for 2020: 'Whether you dream of a Mediterranean oasis, a rose-filled retreat or a tropical jungle, Green will help you to make the most of your space, proving that small can indeed be beautiful.' One of Daily Mail's best books of the year: 'Can a really small space ever be turned into a beautiful garden? Fashionable garden designer Ula Maria shows how even the tiniest balcony or courtyard can become something special. Featuring numerous case histories and practical advice on storage, paving, furniture and lighting, this is an excellent reference source for anyone with limited space and big dreams.' 'Garden designer Ula Maria takes us on a safari through small but perfectly formed oases...to inspire your very own Eden.' - Elle Deco 'Urban garden design has inspired books ever since the Victorians started to green their sprawling new neighbourhoods. But where Maria's Green differs is that it focuses on the possibilities of growing in small spaces rather than the restrictions. The 22 gardens she has brought together (by various designers) erupt with potential...In Green urban gardens, so often prone to a twinge of pity from those who tend larger, more rural spaces, become deeply aspirational.' - Alice Vincent, the Daily Telegraph 'A must for apprehensive city gardeners and for anyone wanting to make the most out of their outdoor space, no matter how small it might be. [...] Flicking through it feels almost as enjoyable and relaxing as sitting in the garden.' - Gardens Illustrated 'The first book from rising star Ula Maria tackles the perennial challenge of how to create a garden in a small space. [...] Whether you dream of a Mediterranean oasis, a rose-filled retreat or a tropical jungle, Green will help you to make the most of your space, proving that small can indeed be beautiful.' - House & Garden 'Spending so much time outdoors in my childhood made me think of a garden as a natural extension of my home - an inseparable part of everyday life. It wasn't until I moved into a rented property in the city that I felt an undeniable urge to make the most of the little exterior space that we had and re-evaluate it. In time, creating outdoor spaces that people truly care for, no matter how small or large, became much more rewarding than perfecting any indoor space. Many say that a home is a true reflection of self, but I believe it is the garden, where personalities and relationships with our surroundings truly blossom.' - Ula Maria In Green, Ula Maria takes a completely fresh look at creating a garden in whatever outdoor space is available - be it a roof terrace, balcony, small back yard or patio. Perfect for first-time gardeners, the book approaches creating a garden as if decorating a room - exploring how to work with scale, colour and texture, to choosing the plants that will thrive in an urban space. At the heart of the book are 22 genuinely small and innovative gardens with a dazzling range of ideas to copy - from a small backyard garden using reclaimed timber, evergreens and grasses to a rental rooftop terrace in the heart of the city where a cottage-style garden has been created in simple containers. Using low-maintenance plants and affordable furniture, lighting and containers, Green offers simple solutions that don't involve major structural work but will quickly result in a stylish and hugely rewarding urban sanctuary. The book was shot by award-winning photographer, Jason Ingram.

A showcase of Britain's most extraordinary gardens and landscapes from the twentieth century to present day. 100 20th-Century Gardens and Landscapes highlights the evolution of gardens and landscapes over the past century, tracing how these distinctive creations complemented buildings of their period. Entries in this book are grouped in chronological periods, documenting changing styles and techniques in a visual timeline. The examples chosen take the story from the Arts and Crafts garden and the garden city, through the landscapes created for mid-century housing and the new towns, to the low-maintenance gardens of the 1980s and contemporary trends for community and wildlife gardens. Designed landscapes were often integral to the conception of twentieth-century developments; the inclusion of a handful of particularly successful landscapes for memorial gardens, offices, industry, transport and parks demonstrate a changing attitude to public green space during the century and its increasing importance as private gardens have become ever smaller. Designers and architects such as Piet Oudolf, Charles Jencks, Frederick Gibberd, Geoffrey Jellicoe, Vita Sackville-West and Gertrude Jekyll are all featured, alongside more detailed essays on the history of gardens, planting styles, the importance of modern landscapes, and the career of Geoffrey Jellicoe. The text is written by architectural, landscape and garden historians including Elain Harwood, Barbara Simms and Alan Powers. Beautifully illustrated throughout with photography, illustrations and garden plans, this book is ideal for gardeners and landscape lovers alike.

Smart gardeners know that soil is anything but an inert substance. Healthy soil is teeming with life not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains healthy plants, and thus become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial, often toxic, substances. But there is an alternative to this vicious cycle. We can garden in a way that strengthens the soil food web the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants. "Teaming with Microbes" extols the benefits of cultivating the soil food web. First, it clearly explains the activities and organisms that make up the web. Next, it explains how gardeners can cultivate the life of the soil through the use of compost, mulches, and compost tea. The revised edition updates the original text and includes two completely new chapters on mycorrhizae (beneficial associations fungi form with green-leaved plants) and archaea (single-celled organisms once thought to be allied to bacteria). With Jeff Lowenfels' help, everyone from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals can create rich, nurturing, living soil.

This book is aimed at the majority of us who live in terraced houses, high rise flats, town houses and semi-detached properties with a small garden and often nowhere to grow but the patio. It shows how to make the most of pots and planters; how to plan for a reasonable yield; and how never to run out of at least something to special eat. You might not have all the space in the world, but you can enjoy all the flavour in the world. With the step-by-step instructions in this book you will be able to grow, nurture and harvest your own fruit, vegetables and herbs in a range of pots and containers, including recycled ones such as plastic milk bottles, and kitchen sinks.

Planted freshwater aquariums combine the DIY aspects of terrariums with a sophisticated palette of gorgeous foliage plants. Sunken Gardens is packed with everything someone new to the hobby needs to know; it details the equipment needed to get started; surveys the best plants for aquascaping; and shows how to design, plant, and maintain an aquascape.

This title is a practical guide to designing and planting your garden, with 15 plans and over 200 inspirational pictures. It helps how to successfully plan a garden, from a large family space to patios, balconies and even roof gardens. It contains advice, tips and great ideas on the basics of good garden design, as well as how to create a style that suits your needs. It offers over 15 plans for well-planned gardens, with stunning photographs showing them in all their glory. It gives step-by-step guidance on a range of hands-on projects, including constructing a trellis, building overheads, creating shade, and installing garden lights. It is an inspirational and practical book that will guide you from drawing your first plans through to planting preferences and adding the finishing touches. Often gardening is about maintaining the status quo, but sometimes it is about new plans and a change of design. This book will guide you through such exciting opportunities, offering help and advice on how to make the most of your garden shape and size, planning the different areas and elements, and filling the new spaces with exactly the right planting schemes for you. Divided into three sections, the book first takes you through initial surveying, basic patterns and different kinds of design. The next chapter gives guidance on boundaries, walling, creating shape and focal points and other practicalities. The last chapter offers ideas and projects to follow for gardens, patios, balconies and roof gardens, ranging from entertaining areas to chill-out zones, and different styles from elegant formality to an enchanted jungle. Illustrated throughout with 200 images, this is an invaluable guide to garden planning.

Forest gardens are much in the news as an exemplary form of resilient, sustainable, small-scale agriculture and plenty has been written about them already. But little has been written about the role of those who 'look after' them. A forest garden is edible, fertile, abundant and beautiful because it functions as an ecosystem. The forest gardener is an integral part of this ecosystem - which raises the question of what exactly the forest gardener should be trying to do. This book answers that question. At the heart of a forest garden is the unique relationship between the garden and the gardener. The 'garden of equal delights' after which this book is named is Anni Kelsey's forest garden high on a wet and windy Welsh hillside. Rejecting control and a regimen of planned interventions in favour of a more intimate, knowing and connected relationship with her garden, Anni describes how she learned to garden as an intrinsic - and equal - part of the ecosystem. She uses her years of experience to formulate and explain in very practical terms a set of principles that other forest gardeners can follow in their own preferred way. So this is a challenging and inspiring story for experienced, new and would-be forest gardeners and for anyone with a love of nature and a longing to engage with it on a deeper level. A forest garden is a different garden which needs to be gardened differently by a different gardener.

This book will teach you everything you need to know about feeding your garden, orchard or smallholding with homemade and chemical-free `teas'. It is packed with recipes for creating nutrient-rich, healthy soil, to give you healthy plants and ecosystems. Author, Eric Fisher, provides an in depth history of organic agriculture and the rise in chemical inputs. He then goes on to explore the importance of nutrients, their cycles and the structure of soil. This enables the reader to truly understand their soil and own ecosystem, so they can manage it properly. Once we understand how soil and nutrients work, it is easier to diagnose the problems and find a natural remedy. Eric provides recipes for a wide range of compost teas that can remedy many different problems, as well as for natural pesticides and insecticides. Eric shows the reader how to use the plants growing around them to create these `teas', using aerobic and anaerobic processes, as well as how to grow specific plants to encourage beneficial insects for healthy ecosystems. Eric's aim is for growers to feel confident in diagnosing plant disease and pest problems, and then be able to create the right remedy for the problem. If we can care for the health of our plants and soil without using chemicals, we can save money, encourage others to do the same, and show agri-business that their chemical inputs are not necessary.

In the 1970s, in the region of the Landes, between Bayonne and Peyrehorade, on the banks of the Adour River, the photographer Jeannette Leroy and the art dealer Paul Haim created a sculpture garden around a modest farm, La Petite Escalere. With the help of the faithful gardener Gilbert Carty, amidst canals, bridges, paths made of railway ties, and many trees and flowers, they installed about 50 works, some of them monumental, by artists such as Rodin, Maillol, Niki de Saint Phalle, Zao Wou-Ki, Francoise Lacampagne, Cardenas, Mark Di Suvero, Leger, Matta, Zigor... Paul positioned the sculptures, and to help them vanish into the natural environment Jeannette would plant a shrub, a rosebush, dahlias, an oak, a maple, a gingko, a Caucasian walnut... "I don't want this garden to become ridiculous!" she said. Paul Haim has evoked the bewitching beauty of La Petite Escalere better than anyone else: "The nonchalant visitor will pass from the shade of Les Barthes to the brightness of the Moura, from the freshness of the fountains to the suffocating heat of the forest. Coming around a bush, he allows himselfto be surprised by an unusual presence. Immutable. ... Far from the agitations of the world, sinking into nothing-ness, watching the clouds go by, contemplating the places of joy." Text in English and French.

The perfect season-led book to help you grow the best organic vegetables, fruit and herbs in a small urban space Many of us are trying to be more mindful in our approach to eating by choosing seasonal ingredients, and growing our own fruit and vegetables can benefit our health, the environment and even our wallet. Written over a year, City Veg is the candid account of an urban grower from her productive city plot - the size of two classic 1970s VW camper vans - with all the triumphs and minor woes that come with a small, suburban location. From planning and designing the garden in January to harvesting and using home-grown produce throughout the growing season, Cinead McTernan takes you on a personal journey that will entertain experienced growers and share plenty of practical information with newbie gardeners. With helpful growing advice, harvesting guides, tips and inspiration for garden projects, City Veg also includes quick and easy recipe ideas to help make the most of your bountiful yield.

Bonsai, the practice of growing miniaturized trees in shallow containers, can transform even the tiniest outdoor space into a beautiful landscape, or create points of interest both indoors and out. The selection of plants that can be developed into bonsai ranges from conifers, maples and bamboos to leafy and flowering trees and shrubs, and hardy indigenous species that are adapted to local conditions. With its wealth of sound advice and helpful tips, this book will guide novices through their first steps, as well as offer new ideas and insight to experienced practitioners of this captivating botanical art.

The soul of a famous garden, revealed. Before it was restored, the High Line was an untouched, abandoned landscape overgrown with wildflowers. Today it is much more than that; it's a central plaza, a cultural centre, a walkway, and a green retreat in a bustling city that is free for all to enjoy. But above all else, it is a beautiful, dynamic garden with plantings designed by Piet Oudolf, one of the world's most extraordinary garden designers. Gardens of the High Line, by Piet Oudolf and Rick Darke, offers an in-depth view into the planting designs, plant palette, and maintenance of this landmark achievement. It reveals a four-season garden that is filled with native and exotic plants, drought-tol-erant perennials, and grasses that thrive and spread. It also offers inspiration and advice to home gardeners and garden designers looking to recreate its iconic, naturalistic style. Featuring stunning photographs by Rick Darke and an introduction by Robert Hammond, the founder of the Friends of the High Line, this large-trim, photo-driven book is a must-have for anyone who appreciates the nature of design.

Build a natural pond for wildlife, beauty, and quiet contemplation Typical backyard ponds are a complicated mess of pipes, pumps, filters, and nasty chemicals designed to adjust pH and keep algae at bay. Hardly the bucolic, natural ecosystem beloved by dragonflies, frogs, and songbirds. The antidote is a natural pond, free of hassle, cost, and complexity and designed as a fully functional ecosystem, ideal for biodiversity, swimming, irrigation, and quiet contemplation. Building Natural Ponds is the first step-by-step guide to designing and building natural ponds that use no pumps, filters, chemicals, or electricity and mimic native ponds in both aesthetics and functionality. Highly illustrated with how-to drawings and photographs, coverage includes: Understanding pond ecosystems and natural algae control Planning, design, siting, and pond aesthetics Step-by-step guidance for construction, plants and fish, and maintenance and trouble shooting Scaling up to large ponds, pools, bogs, and rain gardens. Whether you're a backyard gardener looking to add a small serene natural water feature or a homesteader with visions of a large pond for fish, swimming, and irrigation, Building Natural Ponds is the complete guide to building ponds in tune with nature, where plants, insects, and amphibians thrive in blissful serenity. Robert Pavlis , a Master Gardener with over 40 years of gardening experience, is owner and developer of Aspen Grove Gardens, a six-acre botanical garden featuring over 2,500 varieties of plants. A well-respected speaker and teacher, Robert has published articles in Mother Earth News , Ontario Gardening magazine, the widely read blog GardenMyths.com, which explodes common gardening myths and gardening information site GardenFundamentals.com.

Just as he demystified the soil food web in his ground-breaking book Teaming with Microbes, in this new work Jeff Lowenfels explains the basics of plant nutrition from an organic gardener s perspective. Most gardeners realize that plants need to be fed but know little or nothing about the nature of the nutrients and the mechanisms involved. In his trademark down-to-earth, style, Lowenfels explains the role of both macronutrients and micronutrients and shows gardeners how to provide these essentials through organic, easy-to-follow techniques. Along the way, Lowenfels gives the reader easy-to-grasp lessons in the biology, chemistry, and botany needed to understand how nutrients get into the plant and what they do once they re inside. (Don t worry: you won t have to learn college-level science.) Teaming with Nutrients will make you a better informed, more successful, more environmentally responsible gardener and will give you a new appreciation for the plants you grow. "

Permaculture tends to be very much in the domain of home gardeners and property owners. But what if we could take it all a step further, and merge the fields of permaculture and market gardening? In The Permaculture Market Garden, author Zach Loeks brings together his passion for sustainable permaculture food production systems and beautiful, vibrant illustrations to provide a highly visual guide to the smooth integration of permaculture into the market garden, in ways that are scalable to specific situations. Profiling crops and ecosystem-based techniques, Loeks demonstrates a profitable, sustainable and approachable model for the future of market gardening. Along the way, Loeks introduces his own system of PermaBeds, season extension techniques, intensive and rotational interplanting, in-depth discussions on soil health, and more, bringing activities, designs and prospects of farming to life through illustrations, so the reader can be immersed within the world of permaculture farming. Playful, informative and curious, inspiring and beautiful and packed with accessible practical information, The Permaculture Market Garden will inspire both the seasoned market gardener as well as anyone aspiring to start a business. Zach Loeks is a market gardener, farm consultant and educator living in the Ottawa Valley. Winner of two regional awards for sustainability and innovation in agriculture, he shares his expertise in farming, design and business through a successful series of on-farm workshops, conferences and schools, as well as a successful year-round CSA.

Wracked by guilt for breaking a childhood bond with her naturalist father and fearful for the future of the planet in light of the catastrophic impact of climate change, Annabel sets out on a personal journey of redemption. She seeks to reconnect with nature and wildlife in the one place she knows she can make a real difference - her own, barren, neglected garden. Guided by her eccentric, octogenarian neighbour, and with the ghost of her late father never far from her thoughts, Annabel begins to rediscover the therapeutic art of wildlife gardening. Her moving and often very funny green odyssey travels from an idyllic nature-filled childhood of hay meadows, hedgehogs and waxwings in the 1970s to the present day where biodiversity loss is reaching crisis point. The Guilty Gardener neatly blends quirky memoir with pertinent observation of our natural world while showcasing the key to successful wildlife gardening. Illustrated with exquisite line drawings, it reminds us of the simple necessity and beauty of nature and how rewilding can restore love, hope, even life itself. "This book is a lovely demonstration of the importance of gardening for wildlife and enjoying all the benefits this brings, both for our natural world and also for our own wellbeing." Estelle Bailey, CEO, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust

Joel Morrow was editor of the journal Biodynamics for over thirty years, in which he published regular 'biographies' of vegetables. The 76 biographies in this book address all aspects of the vegetables, including how to grow them, their climate of origin, their transformation over time, and their nutritional and therapeutic potential. Arranged alphabetically -- from Asian Brassicas to Winter Squash -- this unique book is more than just a gardening guide. Inspired by Rudolf Steiner's spiritual view of nature, it offers a complete understanding of the vegetables, revealing their inner characteristics and helping growers to improve plant health and yields.

Colourful and hardy succulents meet the simple principles of Japanese Bonsai and Ikebana in this unique guide to container gardening. Inexpensive projects presented along with the spare aesthetic of Japanese design will appeal to everyone from interior designers to small space enthusiasts to gardeners. Stylish Succulents approaches container gardens as an art form ranging from low-key to lush. Trendy and low-maintenance succulents come in a variety of colours, sizes, shapes, and textures as do containers making each project one-of-a-kind. Projects are carefully explained and include step-by-step photo instructions. Learn how to: Choose colours, shapes, and textures to fit your personal space Utilize wall spaces with simple planters and dramatic hanging gardens Make a succulent wreath Create thoughtful and inexpensive giftsEvery level of gardener can create these miniature works of gardening art using containers and plants of their choosing. The possibilities are truly endless!

Bare, stark swimming pools - those rectangular concrete holes in the ground surrounded by a chain link fence - are going the way of the dinosaurs. Pool owners have begun to see the pool and the area around it as an outdoor living space, a place for entertaining a crowd or relaxing alone. In response to this hot, new trend, gardener and landscape designer Catriona Tudor Erler has written POOLSCAPING, a one-of-a-kind handbook overflowing with inspiring ideas and practical advice on how to make your swimming pool the lovely, welcoming centrepiece of your property Illustrated with beautiful full-colour photographs of outstanding poolscapes, this unique guide demonstrates how any pool owner can transform the pool area into the showpiece of the neighbourhood

The Gardener's Guide to Succulents is a stunning visual reference identifying over 125 plants from 40 different genera of succulents and cacti. Fleshy, spiny, hairy, flowering--and coming in every imaginable shape, color and size--this plant family has captured the affection of plant enthusiasts all over the world. This book provides a beautiful overview of the diversity that succulents have to offer, presenting a wide variety of popular plants to help you create striking, aesthetically pleasing compositions. This succulent guide includes information about: What each variety needs and where it thrives Plant characteristics, with ratings on ease of growth and maintenance requirements Ideas for group plantings and illustrated tips on indoor planting Striking identification photos, rich in color and contrast This succulent encyclopedia is a useful resource for everyone--from cacti beginners looking to decorate their living space to serious gardeners hoping to expand their succulent plantings.

Choosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that's taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower published 20 years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine.

Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.

Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.

Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Coleman's own farm.

His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons.

A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it "just can't be done."