Best of
Horticulture

2007

Niwaki: Pruning, Training and Shaping Trees the Japanese Way


Jake Hobson - 2007
    In this highly practical book, Western gardeners are encouraged to draw upon the techniques and sculpt their own garden trees to unique effect. After first discussing the principles that underpin the techniques, the author offers in-depth guidelines for shaping pines, azaleas, conifers, broadleaved evergreens, bamboos and deciduous trees. Throughout the text, step-by-step illustrations accompany the instructions, while abundant photographs and anecdotes bring the ideas surrounding niwaki vividly to life.

Designing with Succulents


Debra Lee Baldwin - 2007
    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.

The Landscaping Ideas of Jays: A Natural History of the Backyard Restoration Garden


Judith Larner Lowry - 2007
    Judith Larner Lowry, winner of the prestigious John Burroughs award, here builds on themes from her best-selling Gardening with a Wild Heart, which introduced restoration gardening as a new way of thinking about land and people. Drawing on her experiences in her own garden, Lowry offers guidance on how to plan a garden with birds, plants, and insects in mind; how to shape it with trees and shrubs, paths and trails, ponds, and other features; and how to cultivate, maintain, and harvest seeds and food from a diverse array of native annuals and perennials. Working in passionate collaboration with the scrub jays, quail, ants, and deer who visit her garden, and inspired by other gardeners, including some of the women pioneers of native plant horticulture, Lowry shares the delights of creating site-specific, ever-changing gardens that can help us better understand our place in the natural world.

Viburnums: Flowering Shrubs for Every Season


Michael Dirr - 2007
    Yet despite these outstanding qualities, there has never been an entire volume devoted to them—until now. In this definitive, comprehensive, generously illustarted guide, internationally renowned woody plant expert Michael Dirr provides a wealth of information about every species and cultivar worthy of horticultural consideration. Never one to pull punches, Dirr bestows praise on viburnums that deserve it and is frank in his evaluation of other plants' occasional shortcomings. These finely judged appraisals make it easy for the gardener or designer to choose the right plant for the right situation.Whether you're a home gardener in search of a four-season shrub; a nursery professional seeking woody plants with proven appeal; or a designer looking for specimens that are both functional and guaranteed to impress clients, Viburnums will acquaint you with a group of plants capable of meeting all these requirements.Michael Dirr has said that a garden without viburnums is like a life without the pleasures of music and art. After reading just a few pages of this unparalleled work, you're sure to agree.

Islamic Gardens and Landscapes


D. Fairchild Ruggles - 2007
    However, such simplification, Ruggles contends, denies the sophistication and diversity of the art form. Islamic Gardens and Landscapes immerses the reader in the world of the architects of the great gardens of the Islamic world, from medieval Morocco to contemporary India.Just as Islamic culture is historically dense, sophisticated, and complex, so too is the history of its built landscapes. Islamic gardens began from the practical need to organize the surrounding space of human civilization, tame nature, enhance the earth's yield, and create a legible map on which to distribute natural resources. Ruggles follows the evolution of these early farming efforts to their aristocratic apex in famous formal gardens of the Alhambra in Spain and the Taj Mahal in Agra.Whether in a humble city home or a royal courtyard, the garden has several defining characteristics, which Ruggles discusses. Most notable is an enclosed space divided into four equal parts surrounding a central design element. The traditional Islamic garden is inwardly focused, usually surrounded by buildings or in the form of a courtyard. Water provides a counterpoint to the portioned green sections.Ranging across poetry, court documents, agronomy manuals, and early garden representations, and richly illustrated with pictures and site plans, Islamic Gardens and Landscapes is a book of impressive scope sure to interest scholars and enthusiasts alike.

The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes


Rick Darke - 2007
    All the true grasses, sedges, rushes, restios, and cattails that possess ornamental merit or that can contribute to ecological plantings are described, and practical matters of propagation, growth, and maintenance are also covered. More than 1000 stunning photographs show details of individual plants and hundreds of gardens and landscapes in which grasses play a prominent part. This worthy successor to The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses is a new type of design reference that sets a standard for inspired, sustainable use of grasses.

RHS New Gardening: A Practical Guide to Today's Very Best Garden Information


Matthew Wilson - 2007
    Over 950 color photographs and 50 original artworks showcase individual plants and full garden designs, as well as proper techniques for preparing beds, planting, pruning, and propagating garden plants. Specially commissioned garden plans are included, featuring all-new layouts suitable for an urban oasis, a suburban backyard, or an extensive country garden. Everything from soil management and understanding microclimates to gardening in arid environments or wet is discussed, along with selecting plants for sun and shade, creating spaces that encourage wildlife, and innovative recycling and reusing of garden materials.

Tricks with Trees: Growing, Manipulating and Pruning


Ivan Hicks - 2007
    This guide shows how trees and shrubs can be turned into practical and fun towers for children to play in; bent over as pliable saplings to create bridges, arches, tunnels, and temples; planted in semicircles or pairs to create arbors and arches; or even transformed into conceptual sculptures. Accessible and practical, the text is accompanied by the author's original concept sketches and a wealth of beautiful photos of the end results. The book also discusses the many forms that are possible and includes tricks suitable for the urban gardener or those with small balconies or terraces. With many simple tricks and quick ideas, as well as more challenging projects, readers will be inspired readers to view trees and shrubs as potential design aspects of any garden.

The Blue Thumb Guide to Rain Gardens


Rusty Schmidt - 2007
    Thoroughly researched and beautifully illustrated, the book is approachable for beginners, yet contains detailed information for landscape professionals. It contains easy to follow instructions on how to located, size, and design raingardens, soil preparation, plant selection and installation, care and maintenance, and example raingarden plans.

The Biltmore Nursery: A Botanical Legacy


Bill Alexander - 2007
    It was part of an unprecedented horticultural, botanical and forestry enterprise on George W. Vanderbilt's magnificent Biltmore Estate, envisioned and designed by brilliant landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The nursery was created to provide the millions of plants needed to adorn Biltmore Estate's renowned gardens and grounds, and it quickly grew into a monumental commercial venture that supplied plants to customers around the globe. This landmark book tells the story of the Biltmore Nursery in two fascinating ways: a revealing overview history and a complete reproduction of the 1912 Biltmore Nursery Catalog. The history tells the story of the nursery from its establishment in 1889 to its destruction in a catastrophic flood in 1916, and the profusely illustrated catalog offers a guide to the cultivated trees, shrubs and plants of North America during the early twentieth century, with more than 1,700 distinct varieties described. Presented here as never before, Biltmore Estate's rich botanical legacy will resonate with Biltmore lovers, horticulturists and gardeners, botanists and dendrologists, landscape architects, students, and historians.

Mighty Giants: An American Chestnut Anthology


Chris Bolgiano - 2007
    It is ultimately a story of how people, working together, can harness the power of community, scientific knowledge, and our growing awareness of the workings of nature to make a difference. brbrMighty Giants: An American Chestnut Anthology tells, in images and words, the story of the once mighty monarch of the eastern forests and the scientists who engaged in the struggle against "one of the greatest natural disasters in the history of forest biology"-perhaps the deadliest plant blight ever encountered. It is the story of the dedicated few who refused who give up: the fearless plant explorer who tracked down the blight in war-torn China, the plant pathologists and geneticists who labored long and valiantly to understand the blight and find a way to thwart it. It is also a story of hope, of small but vital triumphs, as the secrets of the American chestnut and its deadly nemesis are gradually revealed. p#8226; Chestnut scenes from artists such as Winslow Homer, Seneca Ernie Smith, Andrew Wyeth, Charles Burchfield, and a generous selection of seldom-seen photographs ofAmerican chestnut throughout its history. br#8226; "Chestnuts in my Life" by Jimmy Carter. br#8226; Poems by Wendell Berry and Robert Frost. br#8226; Chestnut folklore and anecdotes, including reminiscences from southern Appalachia to New England, along with historical newspaper chronicles of the tree before, during, and after the blight.br#8226; Chestnut reflections by plant geneticist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug, father of the "Green Revolution." br#8226; Colorful accounts of railroads and locomotives that logged mammoth chestnut trees in Appalachia, by Les Line, longtime editor of Audubon magazine. br#8226; Chestnut recollections and inspirations from Bill Owens, Dolly Parton's uncle, a Tennessee mountain man, musician, and champion of the tree.br#8226; Excerpts from best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, about a curmudgeonly chestnut breeder and his cantankerous rural Virginia neighbor. brbrFEATURES:brbr#8226; A fine account of the ecological battle to bring the mighty chestnut back from the brink of extinction with the prospect of victory on the horizon.br#8226; A beautiful coffee table worthy book in full color that rewards both browsers and in depth readers like a fine interpretive exhibit.br#8226; A comprehensive chestnut encyclopedia: observations by early explorers; writings and memories from the 19th and early 20th centuries; and reports on the most recent scientific research.br#8226; A picture of the multipurpose chestnut that once dominated the US Eastern Forest with wood for timber, nuts as food for humans and wild life, and a rural cash crop - and the extent of its loss when all but an isolated few of the 2 billion trees were decimated by blight.pCopublished with The American Chestnut Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the re-establishment of the American chestnut tree to its natural range.p

Pest and Weed Expert by Hessayon, D. G. ( Author ) ON Apr-02-2007, Paperback


D.G. Hessayon - 2007
    G.](AUTHOR)PAPERBACK

The Organic Gardener's Handbook


Michael Littlewood - 2007
    The guide also explores planning and planting methods, including strip cropping and crop rotation; protection for a variety of vegetables and edible plants; companion planting and biological control; plant pests, barriers, and deterrents; and weed management. Particular attention is paid to improvements to the soil, fertilizers, minerals, compost, and manures. Complete with a list of tasks and monthly reminders, an extensive glossary, and useful contacts, this resource provides reputable advice for all gardening aficionados.

Sharp Eyes: A Ramblers Calendar Of Fifty-Two Weeks Among Insects, Birds And Flowers (1904)


William Hamilton Gibson - 2007
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.