Product Description

Gardening is one of the most popular, least exclusive hobbies of all. Everybody can garden. Gardening is good for the body; an hour or two of daily yardwork provides just the right kind of light exercise we all need. Responsible gardening also does good things for the environment: materials get recycled, and empty lots become community gardens. Gardening also can boost your mental health; it delights the eye and fuels the soul with a connection to the earth.

Even if you've never repotted a plant, you have the heart of a gardener if you love the taste of garden tomatoes or close your eyes when you sniff a blossom. Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition, will help novices get off to a solid start and help seasoned gardeners broaden their breadth of knowledge.

This book is for you if you want to

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #333379 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.com Review
Starting off with ultrabasics, like "how do I get my plants to live rather than die?" Gardening for Dummies is a terrific textbook for the novice gardener. Explanations are laid out simply, and all terms are defined as soon as they are first used--if you've never grown so much as a houseplant, this is the book to get you started. Emphasis is on choosing proper plants for your zone (it's OK--the color map will show you which zone you're in) that are fairly low-maintenance and high-success. Large sections on both seeds and bedding plants will give you lots of options and specific instructions for getting good results--seeds, especially, are treated as persnickety little critters that require some extra effort in exchange for low cost and large variety. The big downside to this book is its lack of pictures. There are lots of line drawings, but they tend to show particular stages of a process, rather than each step. Color photos are limited to two sections, and most of them are close-ups of various plants. While it's nice to see what the bark of a paperbark maple looks like, it doesn't particularly add to the value of the book. For folks who learn best with straightforward reading, the sections on mulching, pruning, soil preparation, and tool choices are all extremely helpful. With bullet-point lists, icons for highlighting categories like ecofriendly or time-saving, and simple tables and charts, how-to photos aren't essential, but if pictorial aids are what you need for learning, look elsewhere. --Jill Lightner

From Library Journal
This book has much to recommend it, in spite of the title. It is a simple, well-laid-out introduction to basic gardening by the editor-in-chief of National Gardening magazine and editors of the National Gardening Association. Its light tone is clearly aimed at novice gardeners. Snappy headings, the use of icons (as symbols are called nowadays), checklists, and diagrams make the book appealing for beginners. Gardeners with some experience might prefer a more substantial and better-illustrated introduction such as the one provided in Burpee Complete Gardener: A Comprehensive, Up-to-Date, Fully Illustrated Reference for Gardeners at All Levels (LJ 2/15/96). This volume is even more up to date, including good lists of mail-order suppliers and further readings and information about on-line resources. Recommended for public libraries.?Daniel Starr, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover
"Packed with down-to-earth gardening advice." Doug Jimerson, Vice President, Editor-in-Chief, garden.com Praise for Gardening For Dummies® "The perfect map for a new generation of gardeners." — William Rapp, President, Gardener's Supply Co. "All the basics are covered here.…A great introduction." — Ann Arbor News "Straightforward, yet light-hearted.…A thorough, readable beginner's guide." —Des Moines Register

The bestselling classic, now revised and updated

Your green-thumb guide to growing flowers, vegetables, trees, and shrubs Brimming with illustrations, advice, resources, and suggested plantings, this friendly guide shows you step-by-step how to create the garden of your dreams.

Customer Reviews

For those to whom digging is dangerous ground
I am born and bred of centuries of pure inner-city living, apartment-dwelling stock. The lights blow out, tub leaks, or toilet won't stop flushing? Call the Super. Trees and dirt? You see them in the park. Flowers? You buy them to give, smile when you recieve, and go to admire them in the Botanical Gardens. Vegetables? You buy them at the supermarket or produce store; they often are frozen or come in cans.

My sister, whose entire repitoire of handyperson skills involved changing lightbulbs, recently moved to a house in what my family calls the "country." Translation: suburbs not reachable by the New York City Subway System. She's got a lawn and a backyard, and can achieve a goal we've always yearned for...a garden. But what do you do when for all of your childhood you got in trouble for digging in dirt because it ment an extra trip to the Laundromat? Because I learned everything I needed to know to get rock 'n rollin' on computers from the very excellent "Dummies" series, and there is no Julia Child or Martha Stewart of gardening that I know of, I bought her a copy of this very excellent book. She grew tulips, hyacinths, pansies, marigolds, and lots of other flowers I forget the names of. Tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, onions, green beans, cucumbers, etc. flourished under her stewardship and graced her table. Mint, Dill, Basil, and other herbs grown in her garden enhanced her cooking. She's organizing her work for the '98 season now.

The "Secret Garden" can be real! But don't be misled by the "Dummies" title. You don't have to be as totally green-thumb challenged as my family to benefit from this book. It's got a wealth of advice for anyone interested in growing a garden, from what experienced friends tell me.

Superb information for all gardeners.
Excellent tips, information and planning all rolled into one gardening book. After browsing through, then reading, I pulled out a notepad and started planning my garden.

You'll learn about your climate, what you can grow, and how to do it successfully.

Learn the basics, the beauty and the benefits of growing your own food or just for the view.

I was able to pick and choose the plants I wanted to grow that were correct for my climate and yard size.

Now I just have to wait for the ground to thaw.

Just right...
I am a novice gardener who is trying to figure out how to maintain a well-landscaped property that I inherited. After the first couple of years of letting the place "rest on its laurels" (i.e., get by on its past grandeur and do nothing to maintain it except to water it every now and then, but otherwise neglecting it and letting it get weedy and rangy), I have finally tackled the project of educating myself about gardening and trying to restore some freshness and style to my garden. This book offers a very skillful overview of everything I need to know in order to take on this project. It gives an overview of pretty much every fundamental of gardening, giving enough explanation to help you understand the logic behind the "rules" of garden creation and maintenance, but without the kind of technical detail that would make it tedious or would glaze the eye of the beginner. I have found this an excellent "starter" book--gives the lay of the land, as it were, so that you can establish basic competence and understanding before you go onto more specialized knowledge. THANKS!