Gardening Books

First, you should know why a maritime Northwest raised-bed gardener named Steve Solomon became worried about his dependence on irrigation. I'm from Michigan. I moved to Lorane, Oregon, in April 1978 and homesteaded on 5 acres in what I thought at the time was a cool, showery green valley of liquid sunshine and rainbows. I intended to put in a big garden and grow as much of my own food as possible.... more...

CHAPTER I. HOW TO MAKE A LAWN. A smooth lawn is a great attraction of itself, even if there is not a tree or shrub upon it. When it is once made, a lawn is easily kept in order, yet we seldom see a good one. There are three things to be taken into consideration in securing a fine lawn. First, location; Second, quality of the soil; Third, the kinds of seed to be sown. This is the most important matter... more...

PREFACE. The following pages apply only to those English writers on gardening who are deceased. That there have been portraits taken of some of those sixty-nine English writers, whose names first occur in the following pages, there can be no doubt; and those portraits may yet be with their surviving relatives or descendants. I am not so presumptuous as to apply to the following most slight memorials,... more...

INTRODUCTION The successful garden has a permanent basis. There must be some flowers that appear year after year, whose position is fixed and whose appearance can be counted on. The group classed as perennials occupies this position and about flowers of this class is arranged all the various array of annuals and bulbs. These last act as reinforcements in rounding out the garden scheme. Perennials are... more...

COMPOSITION My chief reason for confining these four talks to the outdoor sketch is because I have been an outdoor painter since I was sixteen years of age; have never in my whole life painted what is known as a studio picture evolved from memory or from my inner consciousness, or from any one of my outdoor sketches. My pictures are begun and finished often at one sitting, never more than three... more...

INTRODUCTORY LETTER MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,—I did promise to write an Introduction to these charming papers but an Introduction,—what is it?—a sort of pilaster, put upon the face of a building for looks' sake, and usually flat,—very flat. Sometimes it may be called a caryatid, which is, as I understand it, a cruel device of architecture, representing a man or a woman, obliged to hold up upon... more...

Mulches also serve a most useful purpose in preventing the ground from packing and baking by the weight of snows and rains, and the cementing action of too much water in the surface soil. In the spring, the coarser parts of the mulch may be removed, and the finer parts spaded or hoed into the ground. [Illustration: Fig. 154: Covering plants in a barrel.] Tender bushes and small trees may be wrapped... more...

A Aaron's Rod.—See "Solidago." Abelia.—Very ornamental evergreen shrubs, bearing tubular, funnel-shaped flowers. They succeed in any ordinary soil if the situation is warm and sheltered, and are readily raised by cuttings. Height, 3 ft. to 4 ft. Abies (Spruce Firs).—Among these ornamental conifers mention may be made of the beautiful Japanese Spruce Ajanensis, which grows freely in... more...

OUTLINE. 1. In my inaugural lecture, I stated that while holding this professorship I should direct you, in your practical exercises, chiefly to natural history and landscape. And having in the course of the past year laid the foundational elements of art sufficiently before you, I will invite you, now, to enter on real work with me; and accordingly I propose during this and the following term to give... more...

The Epistle to the generall andgentle Reader. Although (generall reader) the nature of this worst part of this last age hath conuerted all things to such vildnesse that whatsoeuer is truely good is now esteemed most vitious, learning being derided, fortitude drawne into so many definitions that it consisteth in meere words onely, and although nothing is happy or prosperous, but meere fashion &... more...