"Reader's Digest" Gardening Basics: How to Design, Plant and Maintain Your Garden - Hardcover

Beckett, Kenneth A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0276423712 ISBN 13: 9780276423710

Publisher: Reader's Digest, 1998

Synopsis

a magnificent garden, this sumptuous and comprehensive handbook bursts with color, stunning designs, and unexpected treasures. Anyone eager to plant a first garden, revive an ailing one, or start over completely, will find this an absolute must-have. Four top experts, and over 1,200 magnificent, specially-commissioned photos, answer every question a beginner might have. * Design the Garden: Create and draw a plan; get basic techniques for surfaces, patios, paths, and steps; add ponds and other water features. * Plants for the Garden: Choose plants; see how to use small trees, shrubs, and climbers; and learn about roses, clematis, perennials; grasses, bulbs, annuals, container plants, and water plants. * Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs: Manage crops properly, and find out the special details that go into laying out a vegetable garden. Includes everything from beans, cabbage and tomatoes to melons, strawberries, and peaches--plus culinary herbs. * Care and Maintenance: Find out how to use an array of tools and equipment, and the methods of soil care, feeding and watering, pruning, weed control, and winter care. Helpful "Calendars of Work" make remembering which tasks to do when even easier! If you have a garden or think you might want one, this is an essential a tool as soil or plants. A Main Selection of BOMC's Country Book Club. 276 pages (all in color), 8 5/8 x 11 3/8.

About this title

From Booklist

This is truly a comprehensive introduction to gardening, with basic information on designing and creating family gardens, patio gardens, large gardens, and low-maintenance gardens. The authors explain such tasks as constructing brick, concrete, and stone surfaces; fences; arches; pergolas; and wooden decks. They give details on creating ground covers, lawns, edgings, exits and entrances, hedges, borders, island beds, and ponds. They also discuss container gardening, hanging baskets, and wall displays. A section on care and maintenance focuses on using basic tools and equipment; types of soil; drainage; mulches; compost; fertilizers; watering; weed, pest, and disease control; propagation; transplanting; and pruning. A section listing plants for the garden--60 pages long--covers trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, annuals, biennials, bulbs, roses, ground covers, bamboos, ferns, and grasses. Each entry gives a description of the plant, often with an accompanying color photograph, and its hardiness, eventual height, and cultivation needs. Another section gives cultivation data on more than 100 vegetables, fruit, and herbs. There are 1,200 splendid color photographs to complement the informative text. George Cohen

From Library Journal

This book compiles an astonishing amount of information in an easily accessible and well-illustrated manner. Four top British gardener-writers collaborated on this encyclopedic guide to virtually every garden task and problem, from initial design to care and maintenance. They present numerous planting designs for particular situations, and there is an extensive list of plants, both edible and ornamental, with photographs, descriptions, and uses. The more than 1200 specially commissioned photographs are either breathtakingly beautiful and inspirational or informative, as, for instance, when instructions are given for making a lined pond. This is a good complement to Gardening for Beginners (LJ 3/15/99), which is not as comprehensive but which contains excellent information concerning the time required for the tasks and the difficulty of maintaining various garden types. Both books are recommended.Carol Cubberley, Univ. of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Reader's Digest
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0276423712
• ISBN 13: 9780276423710
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 276