What Books did inspire you for your gardening?
What Books did inspire you for your gardening?
My garden has 3 core functions. Recreation and play, Growing vegetables and fruits, and givin nature more room. The so called Controlled Wildernes. I Love to see all the different species the are coming by. But i always want to make it better, especially the combination of space for family and nature. Ive got inspired by the book The Garden Jungle from Dave Goulson. It just gave me more ideas and motivation to protect the smal animals, and make the garden usefull for more. But what about you? What books, articles, documentary etc, did inspire or would give me some ideas to let nature have more space in af garden?
"Ten Acres Enough" really helped me to put all the work on our 2 acres into a long term perspective.
And for anyone curious, it's an old enough (1869) book that it's in the public domain, and you can download it free from project gutenberg. As always with older literature, there's going to be some stuff that's not scientifically best practice, so don't take it as gospel, but use it as a starting point.
In the same vein "Living on a Few Acres" is a US dept of Agriculture publication that you can also get free online. Mine is from 1978 and also has a lot of good stuff.
As a kid I remember you really couldn't go anywhere without getting flying insects in your mouth. Driving for a short distance and you almost couldn't look out the windshield. All this is gone. During Covid total lockdown, like almost everyone else, we got bored.
We have now basically reworked our garden, from the traditional "spotless grass lawn and flower beds", to a place where all forms of indeginous wildlife are welcome. We now have two large self-regulating flower beds in taking up about a third of our garden space. It is a pleasure to see all different kinds of birds at the feeders that we didn't see previously. All kinds of wild bees and other winged insects frequent our garden. Our lawn is full of unnamed plants and some small ant colonies.
Once a year, on her way to a lake nearby, a duck comes into our garden to show off her new ducklings and to take a break and a swim in our small water feature.
Wow it sounds like a wonderfull garden, just like i want too. Isnt it true ot still is hard work? I often tell thoese old people, who want that fully green lawn, that its the same hard work, andits not because im not doing anything 😀
It does take some work during the "end of garden season" to clean up the old and dry stuff. At the beginning of the season, when the frost has mostly gone for the year, there is potentially some "patching bare spots" to do. Otherwise it's just a nip and tuck exercise, pending on your need for perfection. My wife is definitely more picked than I am in that regard 😂
My experience tells me it's harder to keep the perfect lawn and sharp edges of the beds than to "go wild".
One of my favorite places to sit in the morning
Had to read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" for an environmental science class, which is what initially got me interested in gardening. That prompted me to read "Gaia's Garden," which is a permaculture book. I like a lot of the basic principles of permaculture, but a lot of stuff isn't science or evidence based, and a lot of stuff is taken from indigenous practices without acknowledging it.
Thank you for the recommidations!
Most of my garden is devoted to native/natural gardens. My challenge is always figuring out how to have clean aesthetics and a welcoming, usable outdoor space while also creating authentic-looking, functional plant communities. One book that has changed how I think about this is Planting in a Post-Wild World by Rainer and West.
This book looks interesting! Thank you. And your gsrden too.! I understand the issue with havinh wildernes and a welcoming garden.
I wouldn't say any book, but the news. Our planet is failing quickly, with no concerted effort to stop it. My zone has had massive collapses in insect and wildlife year over year, and I aim to help combat that as much as possible by planting native plants, providing extra fruit and vegetables for the wildlife (I keep a decoy garden for them), and doing it all as resource conscious as possible. Nothing but good things can come from having even a few native flowering plants around for bees and hummingbirds, and going a bit of an extra mile to compost to keep the good insects that contribute to that process happy and expanding their colonies.