The Book Depository Grow Your Own Garden by Carol Klein
324 ratings
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Price: £26.00
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: Grow Your Own Garden : Hardback : Ebury Publishing : 9781846078477 : 1846078474 : 01 Apr 2010 : Too often gardeners are intimidated by propagation, assume it's not for them and go for ready-grown plants from the garden centre. This title shows how simple and satisfying it is to grow your own plants. It demonstrates how to divide herbaceous perennials, nurture seedlings or grow new stock from root cuttings, stems or leaves. The Book Depository Grow Your Own Garden by Carol Klein - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781846078477
MPN: 1846078474
GTIN: 9781846078477
Author: Mr. P. J. Morgan
Rating: 5
Review: I love this book, Carol Klein has amazing passion for plants combined with expert knowledge. She is a great teacher of all things horticultural. 5 Stars *****
Author: Mark
Rating: 2
Review: Plant propagation for amateur gardeners is a topic that would be well served by a reference work with a chapter to explain the principles, a chapter or two to introduce basic equipment, a series of chapters about techniques and then a whole load of pages of well organised information about specific plants. Unfortunately this book is not such a reference work. It is verbose where it needs to be pithy, sparse where it needs to be lush, and contains many anecdotes and opinions that are not even remotely relevant to the technical subject at hand. Here is an example of a frustrating section, chosen only because this was the page the book fell open at when I wanted to find an example for you of the blather it contains: Page 148 is titled "dividing tubers' and this section occupies all of pages 148 and 149. The only plant mentioned is dahlias, and the useful propagation information is contained in the final one paragraph which constitutes approximately one quarter of the text. The other three quarters of the text is a reference to a fictional character in a Graham Greene novel followed by some comments about historical fashions in plants. There are four photographs, only one of which could conceivably be considered useful, and even that is doubtful. The useful information could be contained in about one quarter of one page rather than the two pages actually occupied. Just after writing the above, I accidentally nudged the book off my desk onto the floor and when I picked it up it was open at page 194 -- "succulent rosettes". This is section is slightly better than the one described above, insomuch that the useful text forms about one third of the total and two of the four photographs might -- at a push -- be considered pertinent to the task at hand. Nonetheless two sides of paper have been used to present information that could have been presented more clearly in half a side. Thus my complaint against this book is amply illustrated by the first two sections picked entirely at random Overall, I found it to be an annoying work that is considerably less useful and interesting than I had hoped. If you are planning a quiz night for gardeners then this might make a good source of questions as it contains lots of trivia. The pictures are nicely done -- though they're by no means stunning works of art -- so it might also find a home as a coffee-table book for people who want to appear superficially sophisticated and learned in the arts of horticulture in order to impress visitors. Meanwhile, if you have an actual plant that you want to actually propagate, good luck. If you are interested in learning about plant propagation in general, then I suggest you approach this book with lots of time, a notebook and pen so that you can précis the genuinely useful information into a more usable form, and a highlighter pen so you can highlight the bits of text that aren't merely waffle.
