Gardeners Tips

Your book shelves wont propagate themselves but with just a bit of help from Amazon……

‘RHS Propagating Plants’ a Paperback by Alan Toogood is a good present for a favourite Uncle (I hope my relatives are reading).
The RHS own review says ‘Each plant is described briefly, followed by in depth descriptions of the main forms of propagation which can be used to increase stock, gathering seed, taking cuttings, grafting and so on. Earlier chapters cover basic botany required to understand how plants grow and also describe the various techniques in detail.’ At around £10 I think it represents good value.

‘Creative Propagation’ by Peter Thompson is a scientifically sound book based on a readable approach to the propagation of a range of plants.
At around £15 this book helps the gardener understand the processes that makes propagation work.

Readers Digest and Miranda Smith bring us ‘The Plant Propagator’s Bible’ but with Readers Digest I often feel like I have just had a chinese meal – shortly afterwards I want something of more substantial. …

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‘The Garden of Reading: An Anthology of Twentieth-century Short Fiction About Gardens and Gardeners’ edited by Michele Slung.

I was going to write about brochures, bulb and seed catalogues, but then I came across this book. At least the anthology collects works that set out to be  fiction, whilst gardening brochures presumably did not.

On Brochures

• The best photographs you can imagine are used in brochures. So more flowers and better colours are visible than you may attain with your own plants.
• Printed brochures are subject to the skill and vagaries of the printer and his reproduction processes. Accurate colour matches can’t be guaranteed.
• Brochure side step, insect damage, weather problems and  other trials and tribulations facing gardeners.
• It is a brochures  job to put the best foot forward not talk you out of a purchase.
• So are Brochures fact or fiction – well I will read the Anthology whilst I make up my mind.

On the Anthology

‘….The twenty-four stories in The Garden of Reading comprise a diverse and unexpected collection but one that stays true to its central and harmonious theme. Included are Colette’s sensuous ‘Grape Harvest,’ David Gueterson’s poignant ‘The Flower Garden,’ Stephen King’s sinister ‘The Lawnmower Man,’ J.G. Ballard’s lovely and otherworldy ‘The Garden of Time,’ the ominous ‘Green Thoughts’ by John Collier, Rosamunde Pilcher’s touching and simply titled ‘The Tree,’ and the splendid ‘the Fig Tree, by V.S. Pritchett – as well as classics from such masters as Saki, Robert Graves, and Eudora Welty, and contemporary writing from the likes of Sandra Cisneros and Garrison Keillor. If you’ve ever nurtured a flower, a green plant, a tomato plant, or a gleam of imagination, there’s something in The Garden of Reading that is sure to delight.’ source amazon review.

Do you want to grow something different or are you indifferent about your growing capabilities?

This book says it all in the title, You don’t need any more Tips from Gardeners (as long as you purchase the book) but you will get some anyway.

Quick Tips Anyway

• Experimenting, trialing and taking a chance is a part of fun gardening.
• Horticulture and farming take experimentation and  trialing more seriously. You can have lots of fun and enjoyment by treating gardening as a hobby .
• . If a plant is really bad get rid of it and grow something else. It is often better to tell someone there is no remedy than to delude them with a false one
• Do not covet your neighbors garden ask for a cutting or some seedlings.
• Weeds, fungus and bacteria will grow as new gardeners will find out

A cheap tip for members of the RHS is to borrow books from their libraries. I am reading the entertaining Techniques and Tips for Gardeners from the BBC Gardeners Question Time Team. A well produced book of over 300 pages contains a wealth of information and ‘nuggetts that rarely find there way into practical books’

Nuggets and Gardeners Tips

• Create shady areas for underplanting by puning off the lower stems of shrubs to create a trunk with a head of top growth.
• If a tender shrub like Callistemon ‘Bottle Brush’ or Pittosporum is cut down by frost leave it until summer as it may grow back from the base. Once new growth starts you can cut away the dead stems.
• Don’t be upset if windbreaks take a hammering during wild winters, that is the job they are supposed to do.
• …

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For less than £5 you can buy ‘Container Gardening’ by Alan Titchmarsh from Amazon. Just click on the picture above

Other books in the new series include ‘Gardening in the Shade’, ‘Vegetables and Herbs’, ‘Lawns Paths and Patios’ and ‘Pruning and Training’. All at below a fiver by clicking the link.

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If gardeners are exceptional people then buy them a copy of this book for Christmas. It contains 20 stories and profiles about encounters with gardeners and a day in their life to provide reading matter for dark garden-free evenings.

Amongst those covered are these sixteen:

Roy Roberts Landscape Gardener
Roy Lancaster from Gardener’s Question Time

Tony Schilling Asian Heath Garden at Wakenhirst
Thomas Pakenham Meetings with Remarkable Trees

Geoffrey Dutton the Concrete Gardener
Beth Chatto Essex girl gardener

Howard Donald Waterer
Anthea Gibson ‘The Cotswold Gardener’
Lady Salisbury writer of a Gardener’s Life

Dan Pearson ‘Guardian of Gardeners’
Kim Wilkie ‘Reality is a condition induced by lack of imagination’.
Ronald Blythe Outsiders Gardener Friends.

Lucinda Lambton President of Garden History Society
Richard Mabey of Food for Free

Hugh “Wine Atlas” Johnson
James “Gaia Hypothesis” Lovelock.

Click on the book cover to buy from Amazon