Henry Mitchell on Gardening

Henry Mitchell on Gardening PDF Author: Henry Mitchell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395957677
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
For readers who like gardening (and love the English language), this posthumous collection of Henry Mitchell's Washington Post "Earthman" columns is "equal parts entertainment and shrewd horticultural advice" (Science News). Henry Mitchell is "beloved for his witty, smart, informed, philosophical, wide-ranging and often wickedly humorous columns" (Detroit Free Press).

Henry Mitchell on Gardening

Henry Mitchell on Gardening PDF Author: Henry Mitchell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395957677
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book

Book Description
For readers who like gardening (and love the English language), this posthumous collection of Henry Mitchell's Washington Post "Earthman" columns is "equal parts entertainment and shrewd horticultural advice" (Science News). Henry Mitchell is "beloved for his witty, smart, informed, philosophical, wide-ranging and often wickedly humorous columns" (Detroit Free Press).

The Essential Earthman

The Essential Earthman PDF Author: Henry Mitchell
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253215857
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
"The most soul-satisfying gardening book in years." --New York Times (March 1982, reviewing the 1981 cloth edition from IU Press). "Genuinely a classic..." --Los Angeles Times (on the occasion of Houghton Mifflin's paperback edition, which came out in 1994). "Is there anyone alive with the slightest interest in gardening who doesn't know that Henry Mitchell is one of the funniest and most truthful garden columnists we've got?" --Allen Lacy "Mitchell is a joy to read. He has tried and failed, persevered and triumphed, and he has many sound recommendations for us fumblers and failures." --Celestine Sibley, in the Atlanta Constitution. "Henry Mitchell is one of America's most entertaining and enlightening garden writers.... 'Garden writer' fails, in truth, to describe this man. He gardens and he writes--the former, if we take him at his word, with lust and loathing, foolhardiness and finesse; the latter with gentle irony and consummate skill." --Pacific Horticulture "Mitchell mixes practical advice, encouragement, philosophic consolation and wit. He is the neighbor you wish you could talk to over the back fence." --House and Garden Henry Mitchell was to gardening what Izaak Walton was to fishing. The Essential Earthman is a collection of the best of his long-running column for the Washington Post. Although he offered invaluable tips for novice as well as seasoned gardeners, at the heart of his essays were piquant observations: on keeping records; the role of trees in gardens (they don't belong there); how a gardener should weather the winter; on shrubs, bulbs, and fragrant flowers--and about observation itself. Here's one example: Marigolds gain enormously in impact when used as sparingly as ultimatums. Henry Mitchell came to his subject with reverence, passion, humor, and a contagious enthusiasm tempered only by his sober knowledge of human frailty. The Essential Earthman is for all who love gardening--even those who only dream of doing it.

One Man's Garden

One Man's Garden PDF Author: Henry Mitchell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547345801
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
“Gardeners trapped inside on a rainy day need only two things to get by—a cup of chocolate in their left hand and One Man’s Garden in their right.” —Southern Living This “wonderful” essay collection from the former Washington Post columnist and author of The Essential Earthman (Horticulture) offers a harvest of sharp observations and humorous adventures gathered during a year in the garden—along with much down-to-earth advice. “A year’s worth of wry observations about the peculiarities and pleasures of gardening . . . His book, designed primarily for small town gardens of less than a quarter-acre, and written from the relatively balmy perspective of Washington, D.C. (climatic zone 5), is the perfect makings of a winter read for those planning next year’s garden. Mitchell’s chatty style is entertaining as well as informative . . . Water gardeners in particular will enjoy Mitchell’s obsession with water lilies, other aquatic plants and fish.” —Publishers Weekly “An experienced gardener/environmentalist who mixes solid gardening information along with the right blend of humor and human interest.” —Library Journal “Every page is filled with his irascible, wholly unpretentious voice. He never tries to be funny or erudite. He just is.” —The New York Times

A Rock Garden in the South

A Rock Garden in the South PDF Author: Elizabeth Lawrence
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 082237868X
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
As readers and critics around the country agree, any new book by the renowned garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence is like finding a buried treasure. A Rock Garden in the South will not disappoint. Released posthumously, this book is not only a welcome addition to the Lawrence canon, but fills an important gap in the garden literature on the middle South. Lawrence, in her usual exquisite prose, deals with the full range of rock gardening topics in this work. She addresses the unique problem of cultivating rock gardens in the South, where the growing season is prolonged and humidity and heat are not conducive to such planting. She describes her own experiences in making a rock garden, with excellent advice on placing stones, constructing steps, ordering plants, and making cuttings. At the same time, what she writes about here is in large part of interest to gardeners everywhere and for gardens with or without rocks. As always, she thoroughly discusses the plants she has tried—recommending bulbs and other perennials of all sorts, annuals, and woody plants—with poetic descriptions of the plants themselves as well as specific and useful cultural advice. A Rock Garden in the South includes an encyclopedia of plants alphabetized by genus and species and divided into two parts: wood and non-woody plants.

The English Flower Garden

The English Flower Garden PDF Author: William Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108037127
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 719

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Book Description
This 1883 best-selling gardening book revolutionised garden design in later Victorian England, advocating a more natural style.

The View from Federal Twist

The View from Federal Twist PDF Author: James Golden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781999734572
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Federal Twist is set on a ridge above the Delaware River in western New Jersey. It is a naturalistic garden that has loose boundaries and integrates closely with the natural world that surrounds it. It has no utilitarian or leisure uses (no play areas, swimming pools, or outdoor dining) and the site is not an obvious choice for a garden (heavy clay soil, poorly drained: quick death for any plants not ecologically suited to it). The physical garden, its plants and its features, is of course an appealing and pleasant place to be but Federal Twist's real charm and significance lie in its intangible aspects: its changing qualities and views, the moods and emotions it evokes, and its distinctive character and sense of place. This book charts the author's journey in making such a garden. How he made a conscious decision not to "improve the land", planted large, competitive plants into rough grass, experimented with seeding to develop sustainable plant communities. And how he worked with light to provoke certain moods and allowed the energy of the place, chance, and randomness to have its say. Part experimental horticulturist and part philosopher, James Golden has written an important book for naturalistic and ecological gardeners and anyone interested in exploring the relationship between gardens, nature, and ourselves.

The Writer in the Garden

The Writer in the Garden PDF Author: Jane Garmey
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616202483
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Show me a person without any prejudice of any kind on any subject and I'll show you someone who may be admirably virtuous but is surely no gardener.--Allen Lacy. Idiosyncratic, determined, and occasionally obsessed, gardeners have a lot to say about their outdoor passion. THE WRITER IN THE GARDEN brings together a host of writing gardeners and gardening writers reveling in their quirks, confessing their shortcomings, and sharing their experiences. Combing through a hundred years of garden writing, editor Jane Garmey has discovered some great contemporary works and rediscovered many classics: "I am strongly of the opinion," declares Gertrude Jekyll, "that the possession of a quantity of plants, however good the plants may be themselves and however ample their number, does not make a garden." "It isn't that I don't like sweet disorder, but it has to be judiciously arranged," writes Vita Sackville-West. "Gardeners are--let's face it--control freaks," Abby Adams admits. "Who else would willingly spend his leisure hours wrestling weeds out of the ground, blithely making life or death decisions about living beings, moving earth from here to there, changing the course of waterways?" Drawing on the work of more than fifty writers, THE WRITER IN THE GARDEN covers subjects ranging from the beauty of the garden to ornery weeds, the hazards of rare plant collecting, and the tribulations of inclement weather. The collection includes a range of authors from both sides of the Atlantic: from Edith Wharton, who insists that we could all learn a thing or two about design from the Italians, to Stephen Lacey, who reveals that his most exciting gardening moments are spent in the bath. Some of the other writers in the collection are: E. B. White, Beverly Nichols, Ken Druse, Eleanor Perenyi, W. S. Merwin, Mirabel Osler, Henry Mitchell, Jamaica Kincaid, Robert Dash, Sara B. Stein, Michael Pollan, M.F.K. Fisher, Anne Raver, Patti Hagan, Paula Deitz.

The Gardener's Gripe Book

The Gardener's Gripe Book PDF Author: Abby Adams
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 9781563056475
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Offers reflections on the challenges and rewards of gardening, and includes advice on planning and maintaining flower, herb, and vegetable gardens

Becoming a Gardener

Becoming a Gardener PDF Author: Catie Marron
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062963627
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
A beautifully designed, full-color personal account of what it means to become a gardener, filled with specially commissioned color photography, watercolors, and fine art. To make her new house in Connecticut truly feel like home, Catie Marron decided to create a garden. But while she was familiar with landscape design, she had never grown anything. A dedicated reader with a lifelong passion for literature, Marron turned to the library of gardening books she’d collected to glean advice from a variety of writers on gardening and horticultural topics both grand and small. Marron’s quest to become a gardener, however, was about more than learning the basics about mulch or which plants work best in the shade. She sought something far more elusive: to identify the core qualities and characteristics that make a person a gardener and an understanding of what a garden could mean to her as it had to multitudes of other gardeners over the centuries. In Becoming a Gardener, Catie Marron chronicles her transformation into a gardener over the course of eighteen months, seeding the details of her experience with rich advice from writers as diverse as Eleanor Perényi and Karel Capek, Penelope Lively, and Jamaica Kincaid. As she digs deeper into her readings and works in the garden itself, Marron not only discovers the essence of gardening but in the words of Michael Pollan, “the endlessly engrossing ways that cultivating a garden attaches a body to the earth.” A delightful blend of informed opinion, personal reflection, and practical advice, Becoming a Gardener explores topics as varied as the composition of dirt, the agricultural wisdom of avid kitchen gardeners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the healing power of digging in the soil, and the beauty of finding solitude in nature. Throughout, Marron carefully plants special illustrated features, such as musings on the merits (and detriments) of the rose, essential tools, moonlight gardening, children’s books which feature gardens, and her favorite gardens around the world. Also included is an annotated list of recommended writers, books, and films related to gardens and gardening, and a monthly to-do calendar. Featuring specially commissioned illustrations by the Danish team All the Way to Paris, and stunning photographs by acclaimed photographer William Abranowicz that capture the pastoral beauty of Marron’s Connecticut garden, Becoming a Gardener is a very special and moving portrait of life and the enduring power of literature and nature that is sure to become an instant classic.

Garden Musings

Garden Musings PDF Author: James K. Roush
Publisher: James Roush
ISBN: 1440137854
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
In the first essay in Garden Musings, this gardening writer states, "The evidence keeps racking up that I, the Hoosier-born offspring of several generations of farmers, chose through ignorance to garden in a delightful area combining the world's worst soil and an exasperating climate, all augmented by various man-made and natural catastrophes such as tornadoes, droughts, prairie fires, hail, drenching rains, ice-storms, late freezes, boiling summers, and seventy mile per hour winds. " Gardening, with all the pressures of struggle between the environment, wild animals, and the gardener, and particularly in the harsh Kansas weather, is not for the faint-hearted as demonstrated by the many essays in the book including Sweet (Corn) Pain, Weather-Weary, Midden Misery, and Soil Sorrows. While the essays are full of useful personal observations about gardening style, plant information, and garden practices, the author also turns his wry eye on tumbling a number of gardening tenets and institutions as he turns his attentions on composting, lawn maintenance, and landscape designers who work primarily in junipers, Japanese barberry and Stella de Oro daylilies. The timing and content of programming of the Home and Garden Television Network and the lack of availability of G-rated gardening statues are other topics that don't escape this garden curmudgeon. Gardeners searching for practical advice or simply for winter-reading pleasure will all find fulfillment within these pages.