Weeding the Web

Good Weed Book Review: Outwitting Squirrels by Anne Wareham

Some gardening books are bland expositions, others vibrate with the voice of their author. Outwitting Squirrels is definitely one of the latter.  To those who know Anne only by her reputation as the Bad-Tempered Gardener, this might sound alarming, but have no fear. This is great fun. 

Encompassing (as its subtitle explains)

101 Cunning Stratagems to Reduce Dramatically the Egregious Effects of Garden Pests and Honest Advice Concerning your Chances of Success

its cover depicts a villainous squirrel in Victorian-melodrama top hat and moustache. The tone is set.This is no dry rundown of potions and protective materials.

Anne begins by turning her attention to numerous varmints, not just the eponymous squirrel, but rabbits, moles, slugs and snails and others, then moves on to a wide range of insects and infestations, such as honey fungus, box blight, algae and weeds.

Pest or infestations are dealt with by chapter and each problem is approached with a pragmatism that might find you re-evaluating your attitude. Plants that are Trouble are not weeds (those have two chapters to themselves), they are those irritating entities that languish in plain sight, taunting you with your inability. "If you find yourself writing in desperate entreaty to a plant expert," writes Anne, "about what to do with a sick rose, try contemplating for a moment how much happier your life might be without that rose."

The information in some cases was revelatory. I had no idea that the French use explosives to blow up moles. Anne tells you what hasn't worked for her (sadly she's never stocked up on dynamite but some of her experiences with failure will definitely raise a giggle), but, as she says, it may work for you, so the What Not to Do section at the end of each chapter will give you as many ideas for available strategems as the What to Do sections.

It's full of wry humour. For dealing with irritating plants that flop over path-edges Anne recommends cropping. They come back "contrite". And if this approach worries you, think that plants are frequently cropped by cows.  "Imagine that you are a cow," advises Anne.  A bonus to the reading enjoyment is the generous sprinkling of whimsical and amusing cartoons.

Bracken has a chapter to itself, which is unsurprising as Anne has to contend with its advances into Veddw, her garden in Monmouthshire, but even a chapter on a pest or infestation that I'm never going to face kept me reading. I am now aware that bracken carries sheep ticks (and therefore dangers of Lyme disease) and know that it's been used as the rural answer to grit to prevent slippage on muddy roads.

You're sure to find yourself nodding in agreement with descriptions of standard recommendations. Mealy bugs?  You know the suggestion for hosing them off? Don't, says Anne. "If you try that with a pot plant outside, the plant will fall over and you will also be squirting potting compost all over the garden." I can vouch for that.

I'm also sure that, unless you have enormous wealth of knowledge, you'll find numerous suggestions, born of Anne's 25 years' experience, that you'll want to try. Regulars know that codling moth is rather fond of my apples. Anne's suggestion of hanging cardboard in the branches in winter and in spring burning the larvae that have snuggled into it is something I'm storing up for next year.

The final section is, for anyone used to the usual pests and diseases books, unexpected. Dealing with Outwitting Humans, including yourself, Anne's put in chapters ranging from Edges and Spraying, to Plastics, Rain, People and Water. If you're wondering what these can possibly have to to with waging war on pests, you'll just have to read the book. They'll have you thinking.

Outwitting Squirrels is a book that has definitely come tostay. My one bugbear is that, like most books nowadays, it's been deprived of an index, but that's a minor point. It's just the thing to cheer you up if you find yourself defeated by some dastardly garden afflication, but it's not just light-hearted. It's a thoroughly practical and pragmatic book that will give you ideas and help you re-evaluate your approach, leavened with a dry humour that makes it a pleasure to read. We need more humour in gardening!

Outwitting Squirrels will be published 23rd April by Michael O'Mara Books. Priced at £7.99, Hive has it on offer at £6.75 (click through on the link above).

You might also like to read Helen Johnstone's review. and see how it's affected Louise Curley's approach to some of her plants. 

Book review: Land Girl, a Manual for Volunteers - how cucumber houses won WW2

This Friday, 6th June, sees the 70th anniversary of D-Day.  While the day itself reminds us of Mulberry harbours, beach assaults and, possibly, Red Buttons hanging by his parachute from a French church-spire in The Longest Day, it might not have happened at all, had it not been for the Land Army.

"Without the food you help to produce, the bravery of the fighting services would be of no avail and the machinery in our munition factories would be silent and still,"

the Minister of Agriculture, R S Hudson, told the Land Army In October 1940.

Its vital work is rammed home in suitably bracing style in Land Girl, A Manual for Volunteers, written in 1941, and available now in facsimile by Amberley Publishing.

Britain faced a problem. The stark warning on page 1 - "Germany is attempting to starve the British people into submission" - was all too possible. Farming had been run on a shoe-string for years; often hundreds of acres of pasture were tended by only a couple of labourers. Now that pasture was needed for production, with the War Agricultural Committee demanding more acres every year.  Around the cities, market gardeners were expected to crop intensively too.  Labour was in very short supply.

By 1941, the Land Army had around 10,000 volunteers - not nearly enough. Conscription for women had not yet arrived, so the manual aims at persuasion, calling on women to come to the aid of the overworked countryside. It attracted plenty of attention - Land Girl was one the year's best-sellers.

Dr Wilfred Edward Shewell-Cooper was a natural choice as author. Distinguished horticulturalist, adviser to the Ministry of Agriculture, Command Horticultural Officer for the S.E. and Eastern Command, he was already a prolific writer and his reassuring, friendly style combines a touch of humour with an authoritative tone.

We tend to picture Land Girls on top of tractors and under haystacks, but they were needed in forestry, for timber measuring, in dairying, and for market gardens. Punches about the work aren't entirely pulled: Cucumber houses would be "very pleasant work in winter", but very hot in summer. Market-gardeners would have to endure "the interminable hoeing" and fruit-spraying was "not always pleasant".

But as you'd expect, the tone is upbeat. If cleaning out ditches sounds ghastly, there's the compensation of doing good work for your country. The chapter on Welfare promises that the Women's Land Army (WLA) rep will approve your billet, give info on local services such as library times and postal collections, and invite you to tea.

With hindsight, it all sounds rather rose-tinted, especially in view of some of the Land Girls' recollections in the BBC archive, People's War. Still, by the time 80,000 Land Girls had been enrolled in 1943, it's not surprising that some rarely saw their rep, let alone had tea with her.

Some chapters are full of details of rates of pay, insurance cover and forms that need filling in. No doubt, it was hoped to save time at enrolment. But there are other chapters - on the history of the WLA during WW1, the uniform and Making the Most of the Country - which make interesting reading for the casual reader today.

Volunteers had to be between 18 and 60, of "good physique", armed with a medical certificate, and look to the interviewer as if they were up to the job. Those who'd carried out the manual's suggestion of carrying full buckets of water for half an hour and pitching earth onto a breast-high shelf probably already had their own ideas on that.

 

The Staffordshire Branch of the Women's Food and Farming Union is raising money for this sculpture by Denise Dutton as a memorial to the WLA. Click on the picture to go to their website.

"The trainee will not simply be used for the purpose of providing unskilled labour," says the manual reassuringly. The message was lost on some. Contributors to People's War describe farmers who provided barely a bed, little more than sandwiches to eat, and expected girls to work through heavy rain. The chapter, Hints and Tips, with its advice on how to deal with roughened hands, stepping on nails and animal bites conjures a picture of damp shoes, tight gumboots and heavy lifting.

For all the discomfort, however, many enjoyed themselves immensely. I spoke to Ramsay Shewell-Cooper, the author's son. He well remembers working with Land Girls at a market garden where they carried out the specialised jobs of bundling asparagus and forcing chicory.

"They showed me how to dance," he said. "I was an innocent little boy from boarding school. They'd all go home for lunch and you saw them coming back, hair in curlers, scarves on heads, and you knew they were going out later. Watching these girls having dolled themselves up - my education was wonderful!"

It all depended how you looked at the work. No one, points out Ramsay's father, will be     a success if she boasts about town life, irritates her rural hosts, parades around in make-up when country girls don't, and pushes herself forward. If you put your best into a job, it'll be more interesting, he says (sounding rather like one's mother), and taking part in country life will make you more popular.

Earlier in the war, a number of volunteers had dropped out, so the manual is not above a bit of emotional blackmail. Training and equipment cost money; if a Land Girl drops out, says the manual, someone may starve. "She must feel that she is feeding the nation."

But, really, that was true. Every Land Girl was a vital brick in Britain's wall of defence. As R S Hudson also said, "Famine could achieve what no bomb or blitzkrieg or invading force will ever bring about."

This facsimile edition comes with photographs of Land Girls at work and the bracingly cheerful score of Back to the Land, the Land Army anthem. There's no doubt that some of this book will only interest those who revel in minutiae, but for the rest, Land Girl provides a fascinating glimpse into the logistics, organisation and expectations of mobilising a huge untrained workforce to keep Britain fed.

This book was provided for review by Amberley Publishing.

 

Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs - Emma Cooper hunts out unusual edibles in her new book

You can't have missed the explosion of interest in new and unusual veg and fruit. Well, how about Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs (mmm, hand me a fork!).

Not only are these unusual edibles, but they make the title of a new book by writer and gardener, Emma Cooper. It's published next month and, as part of her virtual book tour, I'm delighted to welcome Emma to Weeding the Web.

Unusual title, Emma! What exactly are Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs and are we likely to see them growing in your garden?

It's explained in the book, of course, but Jade Pearls are Chinese artichokes and Alien Eyeballs are paracress (which has a number of common names, including electric daisies).

I have Jade Pearls growing on my allotment as we speak, and the Alien Eyeballs have just hatched (sorry, germinated) on my office windowsill.

The book went through several titles before I settled on this one. When I began it was going to be something about Plant Hunters, and then I wanted to call it IncrEdulis (which was deemed too geeky) and IncrEdibles. But I like Jade Peals and Alien Eyeballs better!

What made you want to write it?

It was a long time ago now (2010) when I came up with the idea for the book, and I would be lying if I said I could remember that far back with any clarity. But I have developed an obsession with growing unusual edible plants, and discovered that there are plenty of other people who share the same obsession, and I really wanted to know what drove them.

The subtitle of the book is Unusual Edible Plants and the People Who Grow Them. Chapter 4 comprises 35 pages of unusual edibles that the reader might like to consider growing, from heritage and heirloom varieties such as Vitelotte potatoes (blue, and remaining blue on cooking), through forgotten veg such as strawberry spinach and tiger nuts, taking in lost crops of the Incas, oriental veg, and perennials like Hablitzia, and a wide range of fruit, herbs and "weeds" such as garlic mustard.

It's a rich seam to mine. But also included in the book are other unknowns - or at least, people that very few of us have heard of, quietly pioneering the use of unusual plants. One of these is Sally Cunningham.

Emma, how did you first encounter her?

I read Sally's book, Asian Vegetables, in 2008 and was fascinated by a woman who essentially planted anything unusual she found in the ethnic markets in the Midlands. When she got involved with Garden Organic's Sowing New Seeds Project I went to Ryton and she showed me round the greenhouses and we've stayed in touch since then. I keep spotting her in the gardens when I go to Ryton.

What have you found inspirational about Sally?

Sally has a real can-do attitude when it comes to plants. She's not afraid of failure; she just plants them and does her best to work out what they need to keep them alive.  It's an experiment for her, and once she's worked it out she shares that information with the rest of the world.

And clearly she has thrown off the shackles of traditional horticulture, which is always nice to see. I think gardening in the UK does feel the weight of its history on occasions, and that can stop us moving forward.

Has she introduced you to any edibles that you’ve tried growing or intend to try?

Turmeric. And water chestnuts. Two things that conventional wisdom says will be tricky to grow in the UK. But Sally has managed it, so one day I will too!

The book features interviews with over 20 different plant enthusiasts. Some of them will be familiar to the reader, such as Alys Fowler and Mark Diacono. But the majority are surely only known to the real cognoscenti: people like Sally, Stephen Barstow (who manages to grow an incredible collection of edibles, despite living in the darkness of a Norwegian winter for much of the year) and Soren Holt, seed saver and plant breeder from Denmark.

Are there too many unsung heroes in the plant world?

Oh, definitely. If you have a book on your shelf, it has the author's name on it, and often acknowledgements, and all the publisher's information. A film doesn't go out without everyone who has played a role being credited.

But a plant in your garden? If you're lucky, then it has a label on it, so you know what variety it is - if you didn't plant it yourself, then it may not. But no one knows the history of that plant, who created that variety. And the history of who brought which plants to the UK for the first time is a little murky, to say the least.

We know about some of the famous plant hunters, but there are far too many unsung heroes and plant breeders who go unrecognised.

Do you think we put too much emphasis on celebrity in horticulture?

Big names sell, of course, so it's not surprising that there is an emphasis on the famous faces of horticulture. It's hard for unknowns to break into garden writing; garden design might be easier.

Of course, anyone can become a plant breeder or a gardener, but as you say - they are all unsung! I would like to see the emphasis on the plants, rather than the people, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

Emma seems to have her finger on the pulse, bringing this book out at a time when unusual edibles like oca are rousing interest around the Internet, perennial vegetable planting is on the rise, and James Wong's seed collection with Sutton's encourages experimenting with edible dahlias and fuchsias. One wonders if it will last.

Unusual edibles are getting to be all the rage – how far do you think that this fashion is a flash in the pan?

I wish I had a crystal ball, because that's the only way to answer that question. Yes, unusual edibles are in vogue within a certain section of the gardening community, and certainly the plants and seeds are easier to get hold of for some things at the moment.

The Victorians were very good at incorporating new plants into their gardens, and in some cases would work for years to find out what conditions they needed, or to breed a new variety that would thrive here.

Most gardeners these days try something once, or twice, and then if it doesn't work they give up and move on to the next thing. So I think we need to redevelop our tenacity a little bit if unusual edibles are going to get less unusual.

What do you hope Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs will inspire in your readers?

Curiosity! So many gardening books present themselves as the one true gardening manual you need to have on your shelf, and it's absolute piffle. There are thousands of edible species across the globe, and you'd be hard pressed to even print a list of them in one book, let alone where they come from and how they grow.

When people read Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs I want them to think, "Ooh, that's interesting, I want to find out more about that," and then go and do some of their own research.

We've come to rely too much on 'experts' and not enough on ourselves. Unless you're just starting out, or you've just started a new garden, then the person who knows the most about your patch and what will grow well there is you, and people tend to underestimate that knowledge and experience.

I couldn't agree more. Here's wishing Emma all success with her book and thank you, Emma, for dropping by.

Catch up with previous visits on her book tour at Garden Deli: Excellent modern plants for the British kitchen garden and The City Planter: Spice up your pots with some unusual edibles and keep up with the tour through the month via Emma's Facebook page.

The book can be ordered from Amazon.

A Good Weed? Success with Chickens by Jeremy Hobson

Sooner or later, I suspect, every vegetable gardener ponders the possibility of chickens - I know I have - and if you have too then Jeremy Hobson’s recently published Success with Chickens, is a good place to start.

Jeremy moved to France from the UK in 2002, taking his love of chickens with him. As he couldn’t transport the flock he’d kept in England, he soon formed a new one. “Home wouldn’t seem like home without them,” he told me when I phoned. “I was brought up with them, my grandparents had them; they’ve always been around.”

The book has a very personal tone —“I really enjoyed writing it,” he said. “I had a free rein from the publishers and put more of myself into it”— and the result is an engaging, chatty read, which gives you far more than just the nuts and bolts of chicken-keeping. Their history, physiology, the make-up of eggs, why you should keep chickens, and where, are all covered in the first three chapters. For us gardeners, he allays fears about combining chickens and plants, pointing out that, with care, you’re actually likely to benefit.

Aimed mainly at beginners, the book is a mine of information that will set you solidly on the right path. It covers matters such as feeding, choosing healthy stock, general maintenance and keeping your hens healthy—as well as general information that will help you understand and appreciate them more.

More experienced readers are likely to find quite a bit of interest too, from choice extracts from vintage chicken-rearing tomes to a chapter on Breeding, Incubating and Rearing.

There is also a chapter on Showing. “I included it because if someone gets chickens for the first time, they might not know it’s an option, so it explains a little.” Jeremy’s belief in the value of shows stems from his worry about backyard chicken fanciers and will make you consider carefully any temptation to keep and breed from several different pure-breeds. “We all have a responsibility towards the continuation of the pure-breeds, the genetics of which could be lost if birds of mixed varieties continue to be further crossed,” he said. It’s not an idle worry, as bloodlines have been lost in the past in favour of more productive hybrids, while the Ministry of Agriculture warned of the consequences of faulty breeding between the wars.

Its value aside, showing sounds fun. “I’ve never noticed with people who show any nastiness,” says Jeremy. “They’re all willing and ready to help, even though they’re all competing.”

But showing isn't likely to be the first thing on one’s mind when starting off. The biggest mistake that novices make, said Jeremy, is choosing the wrong breed, and his chapter on What Chickens? covers thirty different breeds, divided into those that are practical, pretty or good with children, including Jeremy’s personal favourite, the Wyandotte, and lesser known types, such as Croad Langshan.

Ten years in France has revealed that, certainly in Jeremy’s rural area, it’s unusual to pass a house that hasn’t got chickens scratching around the garden, kept for eggs and the table. “There’s an element of people enjoying showing—a lot of fancy breeds originated in France—but less so than in Britain, I’d say.”

The French are less sentimental and happier to eat their chickens but Jeremy hasn’t acclimatised to that approach himself. If a hen has to be dispatched, he says, “I’d rather someone took them and used them,” but isn't keen to do it himself, especially when he’s got to know them.

You can understand why. On a balmy summer evening, Jeremy retires with a gin and tonic to a recliner by the open door to the chicken run. He paints a very tempting picture for anyone teetering on the edge of a chicken-keeping decision. “After a day at work, can there be anything better than going down to the hen house, feeding the chickens and collecting the day’s fresh eggs? I rather think not.”

Success with Chickens was provided for review by Quiller Publishing. RRP £14.99 ISBN: 978-84689-093-2

Pop over to Dreaming of Roses for Holley's own book review and a round-up of reviews for July.  

A Good Weed? Square Metre Gardening by Mel Bartholomew

There came a point, as I read Square Metre Gardening, when everything fell into place. On page 35, author Mel Bartholomew reveals he was once an army officer. Aha!

Vegetables, Raised Beds, for the growing of,

Build unit. (‘Shun!) Recruit more units (Line up! Line up!). Grow veg (Squo-ad, fall in!)

I’m being a bit unfair. Follow Mel's methods to the letter and you'll have very logical system, spelt out step by step, with a range of equipment at the ready. But there's one thing I don't feel easy about...

First, though, let's make something clear. Square Metre Gardening (SMG) is not Square Foot Gardening writ large (as I originally thought). This is a revamp for a metric market. It works quite neatly (a metre, being 3ft 3inches, divides nicely into one-foot squares with an inch-wide divider between each) but it's still Square Foot Gardening.

Most people know the principle (divide bed into squares, plant one crop per square at a closer spacing than normal), but Mel's honed the practice over many years. His aim is to reduce work to an absolute minimum, get maximum results, and restore faith in those veg gardeners who have previously failed with conventional methods.

If you've already tried SMG without Mel's guidance, chances are that you've set up square-foot beds along the lines of those pictured on Vegetable Garden Direct's blog. Nip over and have a quick look because, with apologies to “novice square-footer” Sarah Smith, they provide an ideal opportunity to examine the refinements Mel brings to the system.

Spacing

Squares any size other than a foot mean you have to think for yourself. Adhere to Mel's measurements and you'll always sow or plant one, four, nine or sixteen of something in a square: one cauliflower, for example; four lettuce or kale; nine spinach; sixteen radish.  The book includes an At a Glance chapter that makes it easy to find this information on all the veg a beginner is likely to grow.

Spacing veg correctly, and sowing only the same number of seeds as you want plants to grow puts an end to thinning and to wondering if that sprout growing in the wrong position is a weed or not.

Dividers

Without a grid, it's not an SMG. And string and nails don’t count. "When you have no grid, your garden has no character," says Mel. He’s also playing with your mind. Mel explains: "If you had to clean all the windows in your house, that would be a huge chore and you may keep putting it off... But if you adopt the attitude of, 'All I’m going to do is one window,” get out the supplies, and in 5 to 10 minutes it’s done." 

Large, upwardly mobile plants

Courgettes, too big for a square foot, might be allotted two squares and a netted frame to train them upwards. Other veg require our throwing in the trowel and allotting one square-metre bed to one plant (squash, perhaps) or a whole crop (sweetcorn or asparagus).

Soil

While the soil in Sarah's beds looks perfectly good, Mel would surely despair. He really doesn’t want you to bother with garden soil. It might not be free-draining, it might not be the right pH, it might be too heavy... Chances are, he feels, you've tried your own soil and the crop failed.

The answer is Mel’s Mix - a loose, moisture-retaining, free-draining, nutrient-rich soil that is weed-free. It also needs to be bought in. While he gives quite a bit of detail on making compost (one component of M’s M), you also need vermiculite and peat moss (or a peat-free equivalent) and, as you’ll need quite a bit of compost to help fill the beds, probably commercially produced compost as well. (Though, Mel comments that the Mix lasts a long time and after the initial outlay you’re mostly adding small amounts of garden compost.)

What you’ll find in the book

This repudiation of soil is why SMG, at least the way Mel prescribes it, makes me uneasy. There’s no reference to improving soil, no reference to the rest of the garden, just a prescription for a purchased growing matrix that replaces an abundant resource. In the long term, I believe in improving the soil you've got.

However, there are plenty of nuggets for gardeners who don’t want to SMG just  like Mel. He suggests calculating exactly what you're likely to eat, which saves over-planting (what is Claire going to do with 50 cabbages?!). Harvesting from individual squares makes successional planting easier to plan.

Useful planting charts make clear what to grow when, helping you through the seasons, and ending with a planting schedule for autumn harvests or overwintering.

Mel draws attention to vegetable families. His assertion that "your plants are just like your children and should be treated as such" is a bit whimsical, but getting to know what is related to which is not. Celery and carrot? Same family; both are attacked by carrot root fly. It's another instance of that reductionist army thinking - "If you become familiar with the plant families, you won't have to learn and digest as much information about individual crops...Each family member usually has the same frost resistance and pretty much the same type of care."

If you’re thinking of SMGing, with or without Mel’s Mix, this is definitely worth buying. If you’re not, he still provides food for thought (in this case, I’d recommend getting it out of a library), though you’ll probably find his condemnation of “normal” gardening a touch irritating.

He provides an answer for those who have failed to the point of giving up, or whose only growing space is on concrete.  I’d even venture that this is a book aimed squarely (oops, sorry) at making veg growing really easy for those who don’t want to garden.

This book was provided for review by Frances Lincoln, publisher.

For a useful review of Square Metre Gardening with a different approach, see Emma Cooper's Book Review: One Magic Square

Visit Dreaming of Roses for more links to gardening book reviews this month.

Garden Book Review: Powerhouse Plants by Graham Rice

One shrub I wasn't expecting to see in Graham Rice's new book, Powerhouse Plants, was Forsythia. It's bright, it's cheerful, it flowers generously but, once the yellow stars have gone, it's very dull indeed. Or is it?

Powerhouse is the description used by Graham for plant varieties that offer interest at more that one point of the year; they might combine two (or even three or four) attributes such as interesting bark, winter stems, good foliage, flower, fruits, seasonal colour.

I've enjoyed Graham's books before - last year I reviewed his Planting the Dry Shade Garden - and this one doesn't disappoint. He draws attention to stages of plant growth that normally elicit no comment. In future, I shall think about the possibilities of emerging plants. As he says, "the fresh new growth on perennials as their shoots shoulder aside our mulch" can offer appealing and, in the case of something like the spear of Arisaema triphyllum (Jack-in-the-Pulpit), colourful and dramatic punctuation to the border.

Presents for gardeners: Sudoku Word Search for Garden Lovers

Puzzles are one of those things that you love or hate. Sometimes both. I can go for months without wanting to Sudoku, then get an urge that sees me solving them daily for a month.

It's funny what appeals. Word Searches have never lit my fire, but some people buy whole books of them. You might know someone who enjoys both and, if so, Sudoku for Garden Lovers by M£R Puzzles would be an extraordinarily well aimed present and, although not big, probably one of the most appreciated come Boxing Day by the fire.

You have to raise your hat to them. Not only have they devised a whole lot of sudokus but, when complete, each one can be translated into a Word Search grid (each number equates to a letter) and, as a bonus, there's a cryptic clue to a nine-letter garden-related word or phrase also hidden in the grid. Goodness knows how you manage to create something like that, but they have.

If you nip over their website, you can download a free sample to try out. My only gripe was that, as a Sudoku solver who likes to jot numbers around the outside of the grid, in the book they sent me to try out some of the photos which form backgrounds to the grids were a bit dark to allow me to do this. However, it's a small gripe, and Kim Roscoe, of M&R Puzzles, tells me they've spotted this themselves and will be doing something about it in further editions.

 

How to Start a Landscaping and Gardening Business

Are you just back from holiday? Contemplating the long run-up to Christmas, with weeks of commuting and office politics?

It was at this time, just as much as New Year, when I used to find myself thinking longingly of another career (before I became self-employed, of course. After that, holidays were something of a dream themselves).  Even a short break can give you the feeling of infinite possibilities and a desire not to return to your current daily grind.

And if you enjoy the healthy toil and plentiful fresh air when gardening or landscaping, then I'll bet you've thought about setting up as a self-employed gardener and/or landscaper.

It does appeal, doesn't it? Your own boss, your own timetable - no toeing the office line, doing damn silly projects that everyone knows are a waste of time. No frustrating commute, stuck in traffic or waiting for leaves on the line to clear.

Hold on, though, what's it really like? 

Going into a new career with your eyes shut is just asking for failure.  So where can you find out more?

Many of the readers of this blog will be familiar with Phil Voice who runs the Landscape Juice website and, with over twenty years' experience of the landscaping trade, has seen plenty of people who thought about the good side, but didn't contemplate how they'd actually run their business.

The premise of Landscape Juice is to help the one-man bands and small businesses who had nowhere to turn for support or information.  Now we've put together How to Start a Landscaping and Gardening Business. It's a short e-book that poses the tough questions that you should ask yourself before setting up business, and helps you find the answers. (In case you're wondering about my part in it, I did the editing.)

What does it make you think about? Well, you have to ask whether your dream of self-employment will bring you the income you need. What happens when the weather's bad? Can you hack the business side, however good you are at the job itself?

As Phil writes at the beginning of the book: "There are also many other aspects of a garden business that have to be considered at this important stage and the following is designed to put you off. If it doesn't put you off, there's every chance you're, mentally at least, equipped to get started."

Helping with the sums and giving an insight into the realities you’ll have to consider before launching into something that you enjoy only on a casual basis now How to Start a Landscaping or Gardening Business provides a firm foundation on which to make your new career a success.

 

The Good Weed Garden Book Review: Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens

It seems perverse to review a book of drought-tolerant plants while looking out on another rain-soaked day in summer, but this weather isn't all bad. Inspect your garden after sustained and steady rainfall and you'll soon find out which areas of your patch remain surprisingly dry.

For these spots, and for gardens that experience drought at some point of the year Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens offers 200 suggestions. Of course, always the implication nowadays is that we're heading for increased periods of aridity and all need to conserve water; this is certainly not the first book to title itself with this angle in mind. Once inside, however, it settles into a no-nonsense collection of plants that don't need a lot of water, divided into eleven categories, including trees, bulbs, ground cover, palms and cycads.

Authors Lauren Springer Ogden and husband Scott, who share their time between homes in Colorado and Texas, wrote Plant-Driven Design, which won a coveted American Horticultural Society Book Award in 2009. Their sojourns in Europe led them to introduce to the States plants that were virtually unknown over there, which then made it into the mainstream nursery trade.  These included seakale (Crambe maritima) and hardy shrub mallow (Lavatera thuringiaca).

Before you reject the book as purely American, though, Lauren has lived and gardened professionally in the UK, and the authors point out that many of the plants they've chosen will suit the UK. Their criteria for inclusion is described:

If a plant in beautiful, well adapted to the site and region, and not overly aggressive or invasive, it deserves consideration. If it needs little input in terms of soil amendment, fertilizer, or ongoing care, better yet. If it supports a range of creatures with food, cover, or nesting places, it's a win-win for all. We have used these criteria to pick the two hundred plants described here.

The common denominator of the plants is that they all require well drained soil. When fully established, they require only one inch of water every two weeks during the hottest part of the growing season, less in cool weather or when not growing strongly. This certainly makes this book worth perusing if you garden in containers.

Waterwise Plants is definitely not a substitute for Dry Shade Planting, which I reviewed in February. Of the 200 plants, only three are recommended for full shade, one of them being Ptelea trifoliata, a tree. (The others, in case you're wondering, are standard shade standby, Mahonia, and Ivory Sedge (Carex eburnea).)

I must admit that, being lazy, I'd like a little more acknowledgement of the UK climate (there's the usual list of American climate zones, with their minimum temperatures, to give some ideas of equivalents, but that's all) but with a bit of cross-referencing of zones, a casual knowledge of what grows around us, and attention to remarks about the West Coast (which doubles for the Mediterranean), heat and humidity, you can get a feel for what is worth further research for growing here.

Where this book scores highly is in the Design Ideas and Related Plants paragraphs included in each entry. Only brief, these remarks, nevertheless, immediately conjure the sort of planting that would suit, and the companions that would thrive with it. If you're looking to create a dry garden, this will give plenty of ideas.

With good photos portraying each plant, and a one-plant-per-page layout, this is an eminently browsable book which offers plenty of food for thought, and a head start on checking up on the plants that you'd like to grow in the UK climate.

NB: thanks to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for pointing out that I've managed to coincide this post with World Oceans Day. This annual celebration, every 8th June, honours the water that links everyone around the world and reminds us that we should treat our precious resource with respect. OK, so it's not immediately gardening-related, but water is water and we need to take care of it. The WWF would you to give them your tips on saving water in the garden.

And a final NB: I've linked this with the Garden Book Review meme at Roses and Other Gardening Joys. It happens every month around the 20th. Why not pop over and see what else has been read recently?

Presents for gardeners: meet your gardening book at the British Library

Do we have enough gardening books in the world? Well, probably, but volumes from the past need preserving, and the British Library has a scheme that could provide just the present for the gardener that has every book he or she could ever need: Book Adoption.

When I had a look at what’s on offer, garden-related titles were so high on the list that I wondered if they had some secret cookie attached to my search engine. Here are just three of the one's I found: Hortus Europae Americanus by Mark Catesby (1767), with 63 etchings, just right for someone interested in plant illustration; Flowers from Shakespeare's Garden by William Shakespeare (1906), in which illustrator Walter Crane portrays the flowers mentioned in old Willy Waggle-Dagger’s plays as human characters; and The Flowers of Japan and the Art of Flower Arrangement by Josiah Conde ( 1891) in which the architect details the intricacies of Ikebana.

You can fork out quite a bit for an adoption - £1000 lets you choose a book not on the current adoption list, puts your bookplate in the favoured tome and names you in the annual report, while £150 includes a tour of the library – but the £30 standard adoption includes the fun bit of an invitation to their annual “Meet Your Book” event. OK, so you could join the British Library and ask to see it anyway but, if you’re into good causes, this gift is slightly different and offers, to be frank, a tad more enjoyment to the recipient than the news that their present’s been spent on a goat in Uganda.

Do have a browse anyway. Not all the titles on the adoption list are as old as those above, and some I’m sure will have you itching to go and have a flick through. If you do go to the British Library, the fairly proximal Lamb's Conduit Street offers some decent cafes to eat at, which are definitely cheaper than the one in the library.