Product Description

The most comprehensive, entertaining, down-to-earth one-volume gardening reference ever, and highly praised:

"Barbara Damrosch delivers the goods."—Chicago Tribune
"Best of the crop."—House Beautiful
"Barbara Damrosch's writing has the snap of a good snowpea and the spice of an old rose."—The Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer
"Covers just about everything you could think of and then some." — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"An extraordinarily comprehensive guide." — The San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle
"Takes your soaring visions of garden splendor and plants them firmly in the ground."—The Toronto Star

Now the beloved classic is revised front-to-back. The new edition has gone 100% organic, which in Barbara Damrosch's hands also means completely accessible. It reflects the latest research on plants, soils, tools, and techniques. There is updated and expanded information on planning a garden, recommended plants, and best tools. Ecological issues are addressed much more extensively, covering lawn alternatives, the benefits of native species, wildlife-friendly gardens, and how to avoid harmful invasive species. More attention is paid to plants appropriate to the South, Southwest, and West Coast, while cold-climate gardeners are given detailed advice on how to extend the growing season. Simply put, the book is a richer and fuller compendium than ever before, with more text, more illustrations and garden plans, expanded plant lists, and gardener's resources. But Barbara Damrosch's core of practical, creative ideas and friendly style remain—she is still an "old-fashioned dirt gardener" at heart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #434552 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 832 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This comprehensive compendium of gardening facts, helpful hints and earthy advice is an unusually readable, user-friendly gardening encyclopedia. The book's first section covers the basics of what a gardener needs to get started: principles of landscape design, What Plants Need, gardening gear and how to buy plants. Damrosch, who aims to answer as many questions about gardening as possible, gives more than the standard instructions for making compost and buying pruning tools; she includes details like parts of plants and a comprehensive guide to botanical names that give beginning gardeners an unusually sophisticated and scientific footing. Her intimate, up-to-date, down-to-earth writing is distinctly rooted in the garden, with humor born of experience: A garden hose is like a lover that you can't live with and can't live without. No scientific advance, to my knowledge, has yet tamed its willful nature. With sections on annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, fruits, bulbs, lawns, trees and even houseplants, to name a few, and with specifics for individual plants in each section, this book will be a useful addition to the collections of seasoned gardeners as well as novices. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover
Remarkably complete, this is the one: the indispensable one-volume reference guide to gardening simply, beautifully and well. It is jam-packed with useful information, old-fashioned common sense, and a lifetime's worth of experience, and is thoroughly revised and expanded to be 100 percent organic in its recommendations. Updated with the latest on plants, soils, techniques, and tools, it includes: The basics of landscaping, emphasizing sustainable methods. Understanding what plants need and avoiding complex rules and formulas. How to choose and combine flowers for season-long color, orchestrating with perennials and accenting with annuals. Extending the season - that's right, harvest carrots in January. The secret to raising roses without fuss, less demanding lawns, vines with discipline, and trees that will enhance your property. There is new information on native species, and all the gardening resources you need—explained in a voice that "has the snap of a good snowpea and the spice of an old rose"

About the Author
Barbara Damrosch is one of the nation's most respected garden experts and writers. She is also the author of Theme Gardens, and writes a weekly column for The Washington Post called "A Cook’s Garden." She appeared as a regular correspondent on the PBS series The Victory Garden, and co-hosted the series Gardening Naturally for The Learning Channel. She is the co-owner, with her husband, Eliot Coleman, of Four Season Farm, an experimental market garden in Harborside, Maine, that is a nationally recognized model of small-scale sustainable agriculture.

Customer Reviews

Great resource for the beginning gardener
Twenty years ago I remember discovering Barbara Damrosch's The Garden Primer at the local library. It was full of practical advice dispensed in such an engaging manner and I ended up buying myself a copy. The Garden Primer is a rare exception of a gardening book that can benefit gardeners no matter where they live. It is especially helpful to novice gardeners who want to start a garden but are not exactly sure where to begin.

The first chapters deal with the basics - what plants need in order to grow properly, how to prepare your soil, starting your own seeds, proper planting methods and how to deal with insects and diseases. A chapter on gardening gear covers tools, what to wear and how to organize it all.

Damrosch then goes into plant specifics with chapters on Annuals, Perennials, Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, Bulbs, Roses, Lawns, Ground Covers, Vines, Shrubs, Tree, Wildflowers and Houseplants. Each section discusses how to buy plants, how to plan your site (with some planting scheme plans included), how to grow the plants and maintain them. She then includes an encyclopedia of specific plants with descriptions and basic growing advice. The vegetable section is even more extensive with details on growing and harvesting. If plants are more suited to certain areas of the country, it is mentioned.

Another element of this book that I enjoy are the wonderful illustrations. They are black-and-white, simple and yet so effective. And I'm so glad they kept the illustration of the garden shed on the endsheets. I've always admired that and maybe this year I will finally get my own tools organized like it!

The second edition, which has just been published (March 2008), has been updated to include new varieties of plants, more efficient methods and techniques and more up-to-date trends. More plants have been included, especially native plants which are so popular today. The book is "100% Organic"!

Damrosch claims in her forward that she set out to write a "simple" book on gardening. Her engaging writing style and clear instructions do just that but this 820 page book is so much more than that. It provides a wealth of information for beginning gardeners and has proven to be a book that I return to again and again. I highly recommend it.

Comprehensive Gardener's Guide
Barbara Damrosch is a self-confirmed 'old-fashioned dirt gardener.' And, she's does organic gardening to boot. This book is a comprehensive, easily understood guide to all aspects of gardening; it even includes a chapter on houseplants.

I like that Damrosch prefers hand tools over power tools. And, that she uses her hands to pull weeds at times.

The chapter on "what plants need," was terrific--covers the basics and gave me a firm understanding of what plants require to thrive.

The book contains all you need to grow annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, trees, shrubs and vines.

Indispensable!

from the author of the award winning book, Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet

Even better than the first edition
I have long been a fan of the first edition and was pleased to hear the author on the radio recently. The second edition is newly updated and includes many details for organic gardeners which I enjoy. It is comprehensive in nature and well organized. It is the definitive garden book. You just can't do better.