A Book of Gardening Ideas

by Mary Jasch

The new best general gardening book ever that should be on every gardener’s shelf:
New Encyclopedia of Gardening Techniques, the indispensible illustrated practical guide (Mitchell Beazley, 479 pages)

This is my favorite gardening book.

If you’ve ever wondered what to do with your garden or yard, or how to approach your ever-growing shrubs, or how to create perfect undulating borders that would make your property so stunning just like in the magazines, or how to change your lawn into a blossoming meadow, plant a veggie garden, prune your shrubs, propagate more of your favorite mock orange, decide to go formal or cottage, deal with topography, or even know how to begin or where to begin or what tool to pick up first, this book is for You!

With step-by-step instructions and detailed photos – check out the pruning section! – the book illustrates every way of doing anything. It tells you, first, what you need to begin thinking about, then either shows how to accomplish your idea or how to do your own research to find the answer. It is an Idea Book that encourages and inspires.

In this busy life, solutions to gardening problems may not be readily apparent. Perhaps we don’t take the time to learn exactly what the problem is, such as what was that nasty army of unidentified insects on last year’s summer squash? Alas, a gardener may know that wind circles her hilltop home like a whirlwind, but may not be aware that there are beautiful ways to redirect that wind and reduce its destructive effects. But guess what? On page 15, three illustrations depict five solutions and show how they work. A really good index and glossary are like ice cream on cake and offer easy access to finding every answer that the book contains.

Editors David Ellis, Fiona Gilsenan, Rita Pelczar, Graham Rice were in no hurry to rush gardeners through a topic. Take the detailed illustrated examples for pruning different kinds of branches and plants accompanied by why and how to prune: heather, evergreen shrubs, deutzia, kerria, hydrangea, buddleia, colorful stems, maximum foliage, rejuvenating magnolia, hedges… Did you know that on a cock-eyed shrub it’s best to prune strong growth weakly and weak growth strongly? Here, every picture does tell 1,000 words.

This book offers practical guidance too: for instance, where to really put compost piles and making sure your wheelbarrow will fit through hidden spaces. For walkways and paths, it clears up the mystery of what kind of material to use for what purpose and in what kind of landscape. And if you want to make an apple espalier but don’t know where to start, illustrations actually show you where to put your hands and knife.

“There are 10 chapters and basically it’s like a 10 volume encyclopedia. Each chapter could almost stand alone as a book. That allowed us to illustrate it with such detail, step-by-step.” says Rita Pelczar, American Horticultural Society (AHS) editor who, with her husband, has a farm in western North Carolina where they grow organic hops for micro-breweries, make their own beer, grow their own food, and do vegetable, fruit and ornamental gardening with sustainable organic gardening practices.

So where did such an idea come from for a gardening encyclopedia that took slightly less than a year to put together?

English publisher Mitchell Beazley sent AHS the 20 year-old English version and offered them the opportunity to create a version for American gardeners. Given renewed interest in gardening in recent years, especially among younger people to whom gardening is often a mystery, “We thought this was the perfect time to come out with a basic encyclopedia that would help new gardeners – give them a wide range of skills, explanations and very basic gardening topics,” says David Ellis, AHS director of communications. “Vegetable gardening is a catalyst to get them into gardening of all kinds. The AHS mission is to get a broad spectrum of people involved in gardening and to understand how important gardening is to quality of life and to improving the environment. This is the perfect opportunity to reach this newer audience to inspire them and give them practical information that they need.”

The exciting part of gardening is to go to a nursery or botanic garden and look at fabulous plants and say “I’d like that in my yard,” says Pelczar. But, beware. She warns that in order for whatever that is to grow in your yard and to really appreciate it, it has to be grown well.

“And that’s what this book is about,” she says. “It’s about what it takes to grow your plants well from the gardening basics: getting to know your soil and the micro-climates in your yard and all the nuts and bolts that you need to take into account in order to grow that plant well. If you can embrace the concepts well, then you’ll have a big leg up on everybody else when you try to grow that plant in the nursery or botanic garden. It gives you the techniques, the skills. This book suggests the things you need to do in order to get the garden you want.”

That includes observing and understanding your garden, says Ellis, which is necessary to prevent problems, which the book emphasizes as well as making sure that everything related to gardening is environmentally friendly.

Ellis’s favorite part of the book – and where he learned the most while working on it – is the propagation section. In fact, he is putting this knowledge to work. “I have a fig tree in my garden that relatives and neighbors have asked for cuttings. I’m trying to do some layering and also grow some cuttings so eventually I’ll make that my pass-along plant that I share with everybody.”

AHS hopes the book helps make gardening interesting, fun, inspiring and educational enough to get people to want to increase their knowledge base.

Says Ellis: “If you’ve never grown figs or fruits, the ability to grow and pick your own rather than go to the supermarket, people don’t put enough value on that. It’s a way to give people something that they will never forget. Who could forget harvesting their first fruit from a plant you’ve grown?”

The section on growing ornamentals is this writer’s favorite. I saw what I want in my own garden and also what I don’t want. I want my small 1860’s front yard to look like the perennial-shrub garden on page 83 with ornamental grasses, perennials and evergreen shrubs – and a dwarf fruit tree and perhaps hawthorn while blooming shrubs flounce like girls in petticoats down the hill next to my house.

My twelve-year intimidation of my hilly country acre is lessening after seeing this book. I want a mini-orchard of every fruit, undulating beds of boisterous shrubs to screen my deck, dazzling small trees, food for birds and butterflies, grasses and greenery for winter, roses all summer long, sultry fragrance, wide grass paths, Japanese maples – all wildly contained in neatly-edged beds. Yonder, I want climbers on the garage with prairie wildflowers on its embankment, a flowering meadow, a lovely and productive potager, and surprises at every turn. This season, I will start on my landscape with the help of this Big Book of Truly Doable Ideas.

For all gardeners, great and small, if you buy just one practical gardening book, make it this one.

American Horticultural Society: www.ahs.org