For Gardeners

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.

No longer a technique just for apartment dwellers or novice gardeners, the use of ornamental containers on decks, patios, terraces, and in the garden itself can save time, space, and money, while offering experienced home gardeners unique creative challenges, site flexibility, and experimental fun. Author and award-winning horticulturist Ray Rogers takes you on an engaging exploration into basic design principles as well as how to create focal points, use water, exploit the potential of empty containers, and more. Stunning photographs by Richard Hartlage provide guidance and inspiration, as well as visually explaining each principle. Gardeners at every level of experience will find inspiration and instruction in this comprehensive book.

Illustrations by Ippy Patterson. From Baby Blue Eyes to Silver Bells, from Abelia to Zinnia, every flower tells a story. Gardening writer Diana Wells knows them all. Here she presents one hundred well-known garden favorites and the not-so-well-known stories behind their names. Not for gardeners only, this is a book for anyone interested not just in the blossoms, but in the roots, too.

Bill Alexander had no idea that his simple dream of having a vegetable garden and small orchard in his backyard would lead him into life-and-death battles with groundhogs, webworms, weeds, and weather; midnight expeditions in the dead of winter to dig up fresh thyme; and skirmishes with neighbors who feed the vermin (i.e., deer). Not to mention the vacations that had to be planned around the harvest, the near electrocution of the tree man, the limitations of his own middle-aged body, and the pity of his wife and kids. When Alexander runs (just for fun!) a costbenefit analysis, adding up everything from the live animal trap to the Velcro tomato wraps and then amortizing it over the life of his garden, it comes as quite a shock to learn that it cost him a staggering $64 to grow each one of his beloved Brandywine tomatoes. But as any gardener will tell you, you can't put a price on the unparalleled pleasures of providing fresh food for your family.

Indoor plants bring living warmth to any interior décor. Arrange them in beautiful containers, root them creatively in varied textural beds, and enjoy the stunning results. Author Rosemary McCreary has designed 40 dazzling tabletop gardens to inspire the indoor green thumb year-round — gardens that enhance the home with more drama than potted houseplants and greater durability than cut flowers.

McCreary’s innovative designs include stylish gardens under glass; floating plants whose roots, visible in clear water, are part of the allure; and miniature landscapes that grow in every type of beautiful tray, container, and basket imaginable. Among the projects are a collection of succulents springing out of a colorful gravel bed; a basket of savory Mediterranean herbs to perk up winter meals; cascading ivy, trained to frame a north-facing window; and a charming miniature tea rose in a jar.

To ensure success, each project includes step-by-step design and planting instructions, a complete checklist of required materials, ongoing care advice, and full-color photography of materials and the completed garden. Exotic orchids, soft grasses, easy-to-grow herbs, and colorful bulbs are among the dozens of popular plants McCreary encourages gardeners to work with in her designs.

For every dedicated gardener who has spent dull winter months longing for the scent of dirt, tabletop gardens are the answer. Their elegance and vitality connect the housebound grower to summer’s cycles of growth.

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING A GARDENER COULD WISH FOR

In more than forty years of travel, Stafford Cliff—designer and gardener—has gathered a planet’s worth of inspiration on elements to enhance a garden. The result is 1000 Garden Ideas, a visual encyclopedia bursting with just about every garden idea ever invented by man or inspired by nature, artfully presented in more than 1000 photographs.

Plantings may be the essence of the garden, whether it’s a tiny patch in the backyard or acres of land extending for as far as the eye can see. But elements worthy of the planting can take a garden to unique and exciting new heights.

With a designer’s eye and a gardener’s heart, Cliff has assembled an endless array of ideas, from all over the world, to make a garden more personal: fences and pools, paths and benches, statues and waterfalls, borders and bridges— even birdhouses and follies. Within each category are hundreds of illustrated examples, ranging from traditional to contemporary; from simple to complex; from homey and rustic to downright Byzantine. It’s all here, whatever your taste, your need, or your fantasy.

And if you’re breathless with so many choices, Stafford Cliff is there to help you arrive at the best decisions for your own particular space, through a series of questions:

•Do you want privacy or maximum light?
•Do you envision a contrast to the style of your home or neighborhood, or complete harmony?
•Do you prefer peace and quiet, or the soothing sounds of rustling leaves, bubbling water, and bird song? There’s glorious visual advice on plants and plantings: what kinds of containers to put them in; how to use them in your space; what to surround them with; and much more. In addition, an extensive list of suppliers makes it possible for you to turn inspiration into reality. If you’re a seasoned gardener, or even if you’re an aspiring one, this is a book for you, lush with ideas for the garden of your dreams.

Succulent plants offer dazzling possibilities for garden design and require only minimal maintenance to remain lush and alluring year round. Featuring the work of more than 50 professional garden designers and creative homeowners, this complete design compendium is as practical as it is inspirational. Lavishly illustrated with over 300 photographs, it gives design and cultivation basics for paths, borders, slopes, and containers; hundreds of succulent plant recommendations; and descriptions of 90 easy-care, drought-tolerant companion plants. Beginners and experienced designers, landscapers, and collectors alike will find what they need to visualize, create, and nurture the three-dimensional work of art that is the succulent garden.

Every gardener loves perennials. Buy them and plant them, and most will flourish and even expand year after year. But in addition to reliability, perennials offer gardeners a wonderful opportunity to make a stunning visual statement in their home landscapes--if you know how to combine and arrange them. In The Perennial Gardener's Design Primer, Stephanie Cohen and Nancy Ondra, two top garden writers and teachers, offer fun, organized, and--most important--attainable advice on how to create gorgeous gardens using these beloved plants.

Cohen and Ondra walk the gardener step-by-step through the process of creating new gardens, as well as of bringing new life to gardens that have lost their luster. They explain how to pick perennials that suit the site by making the most of plant color, shape, size, and texture and how to create eye-catching plant combinations. Beautiful illustrations accompany the new garden plans, and stunning photographs capture how Cohen and Ondra have redesigned their own gardens. Throughout the book a lively dialogue between Cohen and Ondra encourages readers to experiment and to create their own satisfying designs.

The authors also offer down-to-earth design solutions for 20 specific types of gardens, including everything from a minimum maintenance garden to a more complex container garden, from planting a formal border to indulging in the controlled chaos of a cottage garden.

Whether you are breaking ground for a new garden, or revitalizing an existing bed, The Perennial Gardener's Design Primer can help every gardener achieve great results--year after year.

With few exceptions-such as corn and pumpkins-everything edible that's grown in a traditional garden can be raised in a container. And with only one exception-watering-container gardening is a whole lot easier. Beginning with the down-to-earth basics of soil, sun and water, fertilizer, seeds and propagation, The Bountiful Container is an extraordinarily complete, plant-by-plant guide.

Written by two seasoned container gardeners and writers, The Bountiful Container covers Vegetables-not just tomatoes (17 varieties) and peppers (19 varieties), butharicots verts, fava beans, Thumbelina carrots, Chioggia beets, and sugarsnap peas. Herbs, from basil to thyme, and including bay leaves, fennel, and saffron crocus. Edible Flowers, such as begonias, calendula, pansies, violets, and roses. And perhaps most surprising, Fruits, including apples, peaches, Meyer lemons, blueberries, currants, and figs-yes, even in the colder parts of the country. (Another benefit of container gardening: You can bring the less hardy perennials in over the winter.) There are theme gardens (an Italian cook's garden, a Four Seasons garden), lists of sources, and dozens of sidebars on everything from how to be a human honeybee to seeds that are All America Selections.

The Orchid Thief is the true story of John Laroche, an obsessed Florida plant dealer willing to go to any lengths to steal rare and protected wild orchids and clone them, all for a tidy profit. But the morality of Laroche's actions do not drive the narrative of Orlean's strange, compelling, and hilarious book. She is much more interested in the spectacle this unusual man creates through his actions, including one of the oddest legal controversies in recent memory, which brought together environmentalists, Native American activists, and devoted orchid collectors. She follows Laroche deep into Florida's swamps, tapping into not only the psyche of the deeply opinionated Laroche but also the wider subculture of orchid collectors, including aristocrats, fanatics, and smugglers whose obsession with plants is all-consuming. Orlean portrays the weirdness of it all in wonderful detail, but, ultimately, the book is primarily about passion itself and the amazing lengths to which people will go to gratify it.

Before it was a book, The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food was organic gardener Tanya L. K. Denckla's highly prized personal database, the distillation of years of careful research and hands-on, real-life, dirt-under-the-fingernails experience in growing her own vegetables, herbs, fruits, and nuts. Now available to all, this easy-to-read sourcebook offers much to gardeners of all skill levels, answering questions quickly and authoritatively so more time can be spent enjoying the garden. Six comprehensive chapters cover vegetables, fruits and nuts, herbs, organic remedies, and allies and companions. Within each chapter plants are arranged alphabetically, making needed information eminently accessible. Individual plant entries provide specific information on planting; temperature; soil and water needs; measurements; seed-starting dates; pests, diseases, allies, companions, and incompatibles, as applicable; when to harvest; how to store produce; and overviews of selected varieties. Fully half of the book is dedicated to organic remedies that can prevent or combat plant diseases and garden pests. Hundreds of common diseases and pests are discussed, as well as which plants are likely to be affected, how to recognize the problem, and tried-and-true natural remedies. The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food demystifies how to work collaboratively with the complex natural systems of the environment, making gardening a little easier and definitely more fun.