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The Complete Practical Guide to Small Gardens: A Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Gardening In Small Spaces: Everything You Need To Know About Planning, Design And Planting
Everything you need to know about planning, designing, planting and embellishing a small garden--and how to put your ideas into action.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published July 25, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 13, 2015
Like what its title suggests, this book gives plenty of ideas on how to plan, design and plant your garden, with detailed instructions on how to do so. Among the numerous topics are water features, creating borders, natural fences, what plants to combine in boxes, etc.
I would have given this book 5 stars, if not for the fact that 40% of the content alone was dedicated to container gardening and what plants to combine. These "combos" were then given fanciful names. What was the point of this?! I don't need hundreds of pages telling me what plants to combine to "look good" - this is something so subjective! What looks good to someone might not look good to another person! (And for the record, I found many of the plant combos suggested to be nothing special. If anything, they looked messy and haphazard, and some even looked downright ugly when mixed together in the same planter box.)
I also did not like the fact that balconies were given such a small section. The title says "small gardens"... one would suggest that urban apartment balconies would make up a good percentage of these, and therefore I expected there to be more useful content on this topic.
And... I didn't like how the gardening tips applied only to gardening in regions that experience the four seasons. I live in Singapore which is a tropical country - sun all-year round, so none of the suggested plants were applicable to me (they do not grow well here). All the tips on overwintering et al were also redundant.
All the negatives aside though, I must say I still found this book interesting and informative, even though few of the tips could be applied to my actual situation (i.e. container gardening on a tiny balcony in a tropical climate). There were some chapters on general planting and space allocation that were still useful, and you can easily modify given ideas to fit your context, or borrow inspiration from the many gardens featured.
I would have given this book 5 stars, if not for the fact that 40% of the content alone was dedicated to container gardening and what plants to combine. These "combos" were then given fanciful names. What was the point of this?! I don't need hundreds of pages telling me what plants to combine to "look good" - this is something so subjective! What looks good to someone might not look good to another person! (And for the record, I found many of the plant combos suggested to be nothing special. If anything, they looked messy and haphazard, and some even looked downright ugly when mixed together in the same planter box.)
I also did not like the fact that balconies were given such a small section. The title says "small gardens"... one would suggest that urban apartment balconies would make up a good percentage of these, and therefore I expected there to be more useful content on this topic.
And... I didn't like how the gardening tips applied only to gardening in regions that experience the four seasons. I live in Singapore which is a tropical country - sun all-year round, so none of the suggested plants were applicable to me (they do not grow well here). All the tips on overwintering et al were also redundant.
All the negatives aside though, I must say I still found this book interesting and informative, even though few of the tips could be applied to my actual situation (i.e. container gardening on a tiny balcony in a tropical climate). There were some chapters on general planting and space allocation that were still useful, and you can easily modify given ideas to fit your context, or borrow inspiration from the many gardens featured.
October 24, 2011
Encyclopedic reference book for small gardens.
Brief section on design and then more substantial sections on hard landscaping, boundaries, rock and water gardens and very esxtensive sections on choosing plants, planning and planting beds and borders, choosing specific plants for specific purposes and incorporating a kitchen garden.
Extensive (200pp) section on container gardening forms section two of the book.
Brief section on design and then more substantial sections on hard landscaping, boundaries, rock and water gardens and very esxtensive sections on choosing plants, planning and planting beds and borders, choosing specific plants for specific purposes and incorporating a kitchen garden.
Extensive (200pp) section on container gardening forms section two of the book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews