From agaves to ice plants and sedums to sempervivums, hardy succulents can bring color, texture, and versatility to perennial flower beds in any climate. This comprehensive guide offers clear growing instructions accompanied by vivid photography of these durable and beautiful plants. With tips on choosing the right varieties for every North American hardiness zone, you can enjoy all the quirky vibrancy of succulents wherever you live.

    With artwork from Katie Scott of Animalium fame, Botanicum gives readers the experience of a fascinating exhibition from the pages of a beautiful book. From perennials to bulbs to tropical exotica, Botanicum is a wonderful feast of botanical knowledge complete with superb cross sections of how plants work.

    Authors Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird suggest that the most far-reaching revolution of the 20th century — one that could save or destroy the planet — may come from the bottom of your garden."Almost incredible ... bristles with plenty of hard facts and astounding scientific and practical lore." —S. K. Oberbeck, Newsweek“This fascinating book roams ... over that marvelous no man's land of mystical glimmerings into the nature of science and life itself." —Henry Mitchell, Washington Post Book World“If I can't ‘get inside a plant’ or ‘feel emanations’ from a plant and don't know anyone else who can. that doesn't detract one whit from the possibility that some people can and do. . . .According to The Secret Life of Plants, plants and men do inter-relate, with plants exhibiting empathetic and spiritual relationships and showing reactions interpreted as demonstrating physical-force connections with men. As my students say, ‘hey, wow!’"—Richard M. Klein, Professor of Botany, University of Vermont (in Smithsonian)

    And while mastery of the classical language may not be a prerequisite for pruning perennials, all gardeners stand to benefit from learning a bit of Latin and its conventions in the field. Without it, they might buy a Hellebores foetidus and be unprepared for its fetid smell, or a Potentilla reptans with the expectation that it will stand straight as a sentinel rather than creep along the ground.An essential addition to the gardener’s library, this colorful, fully illustrated book details the history of naming plants, provides an overview of Latin naming conventions, and offers guidelines for pronunciation. Readers will learn to identify Latin terms that indicate the provenance of a given plant and provide clues to its color, shape, fragrance, taste, behavior, functions, and more.  Full of expert instruction and practical guidance, Latin for Gardeners will allow novices and green thumbs alike to better appreciate the seemingly esoteric names behind the plants they work with, and to expertly converse with fellow enthusiasts. Soon they will realize that having a basic understanding of Latin before trips to the nursery or botanic garden is like possessing some knowledge of French before traveling to Paris; it enriches the whole experience.

    It's a great project for families and foodies alike, and all you need to start off is this book, a specialist mushroom growing kit, and a small space in which to grow them!In this book I aim to teach you the basics that you need to know to grow mushrooms at home. You'll take a step back in time and learn about the history of mushrooms as food, and why it has taken centuries for home mushroom growing to really catch on. I'll let you know exactly which are the best types of mushrooms for you to start with. If you aren't sure what tools you'll need, don't worry - this book has that covered too. And I'll explain how to make sure that your mushrooms grow quickly and pest free, and the best ways to harvest, preserve and store your crop.But where should you grow your mushrooms? That's a good question! Contained within the pages of this book are tips on how to set up a mushroom patch in your back yard, as well as how to grow them inside. Is it really better to grow them completely in the dark? You are about to find out!So, whether you like shiitakes, portobellos or oyster mushrooms, stop buying them in stores. I'll teach you how to grow your own and keep your entire family well supplied.In as little as a few weeks you can have the perfect fresh mushrooms grown and ready to eat. Yum!This easy to read, beginners book, summarizes the essential information I have learned over the years, and is written to help you decide if mycology is for you, and if so, which route to take.

    Barbara Kilarski shares her passion for poultry as she fills this guide with tips and techniques for successfully raising chickens in small spaces. Spotlighting the self-sufficient pleasures of tending your own flock, Kilarski offers detailed information on everything from choosing breeds that thrive in tight quarters and building coops to providing medical care for sick animals. You’ll have fun as you keep happy and productive chickens.

    Covering every aspect of vegetable gardening from preparing soil to manures, composts and fertilizers, from growing techniques to protection, pests, from diseases and weeds to making good use of space, this is a comprehensive guide to ensuring the best results from your garden or allotment. With cultivation information for over 100 vegetables, including site and soil requirements, cultivation, pests and diseases, and cultivars, this illustrated handbook is a must for vegetable gardeners of all levels and experience.

    His name was inseparable from a cornucopia of new and improved plants—fruits, nuts, vegetables, and flowers—for both home gardens and commercial farms and orchards. At a time when the science of genetics was in its infancy and agriculture was often a perilous combination of guess work and luck, many people wanted a piece of the man they called the Wizard of Santa Rosa. As the United States moved from a nation of farms to a nation of city dwellers, the people behind the new products that transformed daily life were admired with a fervor that is not accorded to their present-day counterparts. Everyone knew and marveled at Samuel Morse’s telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, and Thomas Edison’s electric light. And like these other great American inventors, Burbank was revered as an example of the best tradition of American originality, ingenuity, and perseverance. Burbank had learned the secret of teaching nature to perform for man, breeding and crossbreeding ordinary plants from farm and garden until they were tastier, hardier, and more productive than ever before. The Garden of Invention is neither an encyclopedia nor a biography. Rather, Jane S. Smith, a noted cultural historian, highlights significant moments in Burbank’s life (itself a fascinating story) and uses them to explore larger trends that he embodied and, in some cases, shaped. The Garden of Invention revisits the early years of bioengineering, when plant inventors were popular heroes and the public clamored for new varieties that would extend seasons, increase yields, look beautiful, or simply be wonderfully different from anything seen before. The road from the nineteenth-century farm to twenty-first-century agribusiness is full of twists and turns, of course, but a good part of it passed straight through Luther Burbank’s garden. The Garden of Invention is a colorful and engrossing examination of the intersection of gardening, science, and business in the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression.

    But in a world full of poisons, there was also an urgent practical need to name and recognize different plants, because most medicines were made from plant extracts.Anna Pavord takes us on a thrilling adventure into botanical history, traveling from Athens in the third century BC, through Constantinople, Venice, the medical school at Salerno to the universities of Pisa and Padua. The journey, traced here for the first time, involves the culture of Islam, the first expeditions to the Indies and the first settlers in the New World.In Athens, Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus was the first man ever to write a book about plants. How can we name, sort, and order them? He asked. The debate continues still, two thousand years later. Sumptuously illustrated in full colour, The Naming of Names gives a compelling insight into a world full of intrigue and intensely competitive egos.

    . . . Not only are they home to the richest diversity of creatures, but they work hard for humans too.” —New York Times Book Review    An old-growth forest is one that has formed naturally over a long period of time with little or no disturbance from humankind. They are increasingly rare and largely misunderstood. In Nature’s Temples, Joan Maloof, the director of the Old-Growth Forest Network, makes a heartfelt and passionate case for their importance. This evocative and accessible narrative defines old-growth and provides a brief history of forests. It offers a rare view into how the life-forms in an ancient, undisturbed forest—including not only its majestic trees but also its insects, plant life, fungi, and mammals—differ from the life-forms in a forest manipulated by humans. What emerges is a portrait of a beautiful, intricate, and fragile ecosystem that now exists only in scattered fragments. Black-and-white illustrations by Andrew Joslin help clarify scientific concepts and capture the beauty of ancient trees.

    How did they come to be the villains of the natural world? And why can the same plant be considered beautiful in some places but be deemed a menace in others?In Weeds, renowned nature writer Richard Mabey embarks on an engaging journey with the verve and historical breadth of Michael Pollan. Weaving together the insights of botanists, gardeners, artists, and writers with his own travels and lifelong fascination, Mabey shows how these "botanical thugs" can destroy ecosystems but also can restore war zones and derelict cities; he reveals how weeds have been portrayed, from the "thorns and thistles" of Genesis to Shakespeare, Walden, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and he explains how kudzu overtook the American South, how poppies sprang up in First World War battlefields, and how "American weed" replaced the forests of Vietnam ravaged by Agent Orange.Hailed as "a profound and sympathetic meditation on weeds in relation to human beings" (Sunday Times), Weeds shows how useful these unloved plants can be, from serving as the first crops and medicines, to bur-dock inspiring the invention of Velcro, to cow parsley becoming the latest fashionable wedding adornment. Mabey argues that we have caused plants to become weeds through our reckless treatment of the earth, and he delivers a provocative defense of the plants we love to hate.

    Her spectacular photographs render the look and atmosphere of these gardens, while her text focuses on easily grown, readily available plants that are adaptable to a wide variety of climatic and soil conditions. In the back of the book—completely updated for this new edition—may be found specific horticultural information on a wide variety of cottage garden plants commonly available in the United States, glossaries of Latin and common names, and a list of sources for old rose varieties. The gardens in this beautiful book are not those of the great estates of England, manicured by staffs of professional gardeners. They are, instead, labors of love on the part of individual homeowners, many of whom started with bleak, rubble-strewn lots and went on to create the enchanted settings pictured here.

    Featuring more than 500 full-color illustrations and photographs, along with detailed annotations, Smithsonian Handbooks make identification easy and accurate.

    Her honesty, insight and conviction are the building blocks of the good life” (Costa Georgiadis)."Citation from Good Life Permaculture

    But few grow them successfully in their own gardens because they haven’t learned the simple techniques that make it possible. Expert flower grower Lisa Mason Zeigler introduces us to the long-blooming stars of the spring garden, the hardy annuals – those flowers that thrive when they are planted during cool conditions (instead of waiting until the warmth of spring).  Forget Some-Like-It-Hot, she advises, and give them a cool start. Plant them in the right spot at the right time, nestle their roots deep into rich organic soil, and stand back. In no time at all, you’ll have a low-maintenance, vibrant spring flower garden that keeps on blooming when other annuals are dead and gone.