Start with Soil: Simple steps for a thriving garden

Transform your garden from the ground up with this practical guide to soil. 

Any thriving garden starts with good soil: whether you're growing vibrant herbaceous borders or bountiful vegetable beds. And while gardeners all appreciate the soil beneath their feet, many are still perplexed by how it works.

In Start with Soil, award-winning garden designer Juliet Sargeant challenges you to take your soil seriously, reveals its hidden wonders and gives you the tools to improve your soil health and harness its power. 

• The science of soil is explained without the jargon: learn how soil works and how climate change is impacting its health.
• Get to know your own soil with easy at-home testing, explanations about how soil changes throughout the year, and quick-guides to the types of growing mediums we use in gardening – from composts to house plants, hydroponics to sand gardens. 
• Follow Juliet’s advice for gardening for better soil, with tried-and-tested methods for making simple compost, feeding your soil, protecting your soil, and introductions to No Dig gardening, Hugelkultur and rain gardens.
• Understand how plants help the soil and choose the perfect plants for your soil type.

With step-by-step projects, plant profiles and troubleshooting pages – by starting with soil you will not only be gardening in a way that is kind to the planet, but you will also be ensuring that your garden flourishes.

Created in collaboration with the world-renowned Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and written by leading garden designer and soil expert, Juliet Sargeant, this is the must-have guide for a thriving garden. 

Juliet Sargeant is an award-winning garden designer and regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time. She teaches garden design and horticulture at her Sussex Garden School. Her New Blue Peter Garden: Discover Soil for 2022’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is now on permanent display at RHS Garden Bridgewater.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world famous centre for botanical and mycological knowledge. Over the past 250 years Kew has made innumerable contributions to increasing the understanding of plants and fungi with many benefits for humankind.