How-To or My Garden?

CharlasGardening

Únete a LibraryThing para publicar.

How-To or My Garden?

Este tema está marcado actualmente como "inactivo"—el último mensaje es de hace más de 90 días. Puedes reactivarlo escribiendo una respuesta.

1OldRoses
Nov 2, 2006, 7:28 pm

Which type of garden book do you prefer reading, the "how-to" or books by gardeners about their gardens? Personally, I prefer the latter. I love reading about other gardeners' experiences. What worked, what didn't work. Why they chose certain plants or spots to garden in. How-to books remind me too much of those programs on TV about home renovations. It seems so easy until you actually try it.

2happilyeverafters
Nov 2, 2006, 8:12 pm

I probably use more of the how-tos. I'm not sure I own any books about one gardener's garden -- that seems (in my experience) to be found more in gardening magazines than in books. I do, however, have books about a specific gardener's (or should I say landscape designer's???) ideas for garden design vis-a-vis color or texture, etc. While I often use garden books for ideas or information about plants and planting, I never follow someone else's plans. I think picking and combining plants is the most creative part of the process and, for me, much enjoyment would be lost if I just recreated someone else's garden.

I started feeling like a real gardener the first time I decided to move a perennial from one place to another. I remember reading about gardeners who moved plants all the time when they didn't like where they had originally been placed. Either they were too tall for the front of a bed or not gettting enough sun, whatever. Digging in my neck of the woods is such hard work that I didn't think I would ever be willing to undo some of that hard work. But the day eventually came when the placement of a particular perennial bothered me more than the effort it would take to move it. So now I am a REAL gardener too.

3tardis
Editado: Nov 3, 2006, 1:23 pm

I'm in the "how to" camp. All the books I take out and refer to year after year are how-to: Square Foot Gardening, Front Yard Gardens, The Prairie Gardener, etc. and I'm a sucker for anything on small space or city gardening (since that's what I have).

I have a couple of coffee-table books that I don't look at often - for example In a Canadian Garden - but I didn't buy those - they were given to me. I like them if they have lots of really good pictures. Gardening memoirs are not really my thing although I have one - Tottering in My Garden.

4ColdClimateGardening
Nov 5, 2006, 10:31 am

I find I get most of my how-to from gardening magazines, almost all of which I save forever, and, yes, I usually remember the article I want to refer to, though usually not which issue it's in. Since I love to write, and love to read good writing, a book of garden essays represents two overlapping interests to me.

5Talbin
Nov 7, 2006, 11:51 am

I use the how-to's every spring and when I need a specific question answered. However, I really love garden essays like Sara Stein's Noah's Garden or Michael Pollan's Second Nature: A Gardener's Education. Right now I'm reading The Essential Earthman and The Botany of Desire.

Únete para publicar