Garden designer & author Kier Holmes offers tons of advice on design, plant selection, and DIY projects in this new book, Garden Refresh (Timber Press, 2022). She counsels aspiring gardeners to "work with nature, not against it," and to study the local environment before you begin. I particularly liked the y plant lists -- seaside, deer-resistant, air-pollution tolerant, fragrant foliage, fragrant flowers, and many, many more. There's a chapter on quick & easy upgrades, planting design, and Pro-Tips on watering, mulches, fertilizers, free trees, container soils, just to mention a few.
A very creative book that's well worth a look or two. Or three.
All gardens require tending of some kind, but if your goal is a self-sustaining, eco-friendly backyard or front yard space, then this could be the book for you. In The Regenerative Garden (Cool Springs Press, 2022), Master Gardener and author Stephanie Rose offers practical advice on ways to conserve resources, attract friendly wildlife, and create a beautiful space where you can grow edible and ornamental plants.
As Stephanie puts it, "Regenerative is beyond the concept of sustainability. It's beyond the practice of resiliency. It's a space that can thrive on its own without human input, as Mother Nature has been doing since the beginning." That sounds like a tall order, but you will learn how to improve your soil, water with efficiency, create a backyard food forest, plant harmoniously, reduce garden waste and encourage all kinds of diversity. If you believe in saving the plant, this is one way to go.
You might need a bit of room for a garden like this, but if you're eco-conscious and ambitious, you might want to follow this lovely guide by self-taught gardener Dani Baker and her partner, David Belding.
In The Home-Scale Forest Garden, (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2022), they explain, quite simply, that a forest garden is one that's modeled after nature. As they say at the beginning of the book, "In nature, no one weeds, waters, adds nutrients, sprays for pests and disease, or applies mulch. Nature takes care of all of these plant needs with no human intervention." In this book, you'll learn how to plan, plant, and maintain -- with ease -- a garden of multiple layers, including overstory and understory trees, shrubs, ornamental plants, fruit trees, vegetables, and much more. It's an inspiring story about creating a beautiful, edible landscape that will give you pleasure year-round. And even if you don't have a lot of garden space, the principles you'll learn will come in handy in your smaller garden -- almost anywhere.
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