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The Five Minute Garden
This book breaks the work you need to do to keep your garden in perfect shape into daily five minute chunks. Following this little and often approach, you’ll be amazed how much you can achieve.
Laetitia Maklouf is a garden writer and busy mother of three who has realised that the secret of gardening without becoming overwhelmed is to do something small every day. She’s packed this book with little bursts of activity – spruce, chop, nurture, fuss or tackle a larger project – that can all be managed in five-minute forays.
Spruce the lawn by raking fallen leaves in October, or fuss with your snail defences in May. Nurture your hardy annual seedlings in December, and chop your hydrangeas in March.
Every day, rain or shine, do something for your garden with whatever time you can spare. Before you know it, you will have a daily gardening habit and a beautiful garden you can enjoy all year round.
Laetitia Maklouf is a garden writer and busy mother of three who has realised that the secret of gardening without becoming overwhelmed is to do something small every day. She’s packed this book with little bursts of activity – spruce, chop, nurture, fuss or tackle a larger project – that can all be managed in five-minute forays.
Spruce the lawn by raking fallen leaves in October, or fuss with your snail defences in May. Nurture your hardy annual seedlings in December, and chop your hydrangeas in March.
Every day, rain or shine, do something for your garden with whatever time you can spare. Before you know it, you will have a daily gardening habit and a beautiful garden you can enjoy all year round.
220 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 1, 2020
17 people are currently reading
110 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 29, 2021
This is a really pretty book and the writer makes an effort to be charming. It’s probably useful if you live in London, but I live in Chicago. There’s no evidence that the writer has ever considered that there are other climates or even zones. Some of her advice had me rolling on the floor: serve New Years drinks at your fire pit: yeah, right after I shovel it out from 10 or 20 inches of snow and warn the guests to be prepared to freeze their asses off standing outside in -10 F. Sweet pea seedlings in November? I truly feel sorry for them. There’s lots more.
Here’s the useful part of the book for anyone not in the southern UK (I think Scots would be laughing, too): put 5 minutes a day, every single day, into your garden and plan on more time on the weekend. Duh. I will say it did motivate me to water pots and pull a few more weeds during the week. And I did get to the garden center mid-week for some plants. But it’s May—I guarantee I won’t be able to do that in February.
This is the kind of cute little book you’d expect to find next to the checkout at a garden shop. But I blame the publishers for scamming it internationally.
Here’s the useful part of the book for anyone not in the southern UK (I think Scots would be laughing, too): put 5 minutes a day, every single day, into your garden and plan on more time on the weekend. Duh. I will say it did motivate me to water pots and pull a few more weeds during the week. And I did get to the garden center mid-week for some plants. But it’s May—I guarantee I won’t be able to do that in February.
This is the kind of cute little book you’d expect to find next to the checkout at a garden shop. But I blame the publishers for scamming it internationally.
May 18, 2021
I loved everything about this book...the gardening tips/advice/suggestions, the pictures, the quotes! I love that it is written by a mom who understands sometimes five minutes a day is all you have but you can actually get a lot done in the garden if you work a little each day. I’m a beginner and felt there was enough for me to get started but also many ideas for more advanced gardeners. I also always been a Spring/Summer gardener but this book opened my eyes to year-round gardening, even in winter. Such a fun read will definitely keep this book handy.
December 18, 2021
I read this book throughout the year, finishing the December chapter today. I like the size of the book and the way it’s laid out. The fact that the information is presented in small, bite-size chunks ties in perfectly with the book’s purpose. Short spurts of reading about how to use short spurts of time/energy to manage your garden. 😊
July 31, 2025
A decent little guide. Interesting when read front to back, but most likely much more useful when I consult it at the start of each month in the future. The only thing I would recommend in an updated version is to have the common names of plants next to their Latin ones. This will make it more accessible and means readers don't constantly have to look them up online to understand what plants the author is referring to.
April 5, 2021
I keep reading these helpful books by Brits.. The language often makes me giggle. This book was a hoot but also helpful. I love the attitude of "just do a little every day" you'll be done soon. I often get stuck thinking a job is so big it'll take all day and keep putting it off. I started my seedlings today!
June 23, 2020
This is the perfect book for lockdown and lazy gardeners. So encouraging for the most hopeless beginner. I loved it.
June 7, 2023
I don't finish books that are unlikely to merit 4 or 5 stars, so my entire list is biased. This book is douchey, but kind of changed my life, because I picked it up at a moment of maximum stress about everything. So how do you do the math on a transformative read for an overworked, stressed out mother minus the fact that it's a tidy little self-satisfied work that doesn't actually live up to its admittedly impossible claim? You can say similar things about Marie Kondo's stuff, but why would you if she helped you out?
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews