Scotland for Gardeners

Scotland for Gardeners
Author: Kenneth Cox
Publisher: Birlinn Publishers
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2014
Genre: Garden centers (Retail trade)
ISBN: 9781780271897

This book is a compact colour guide of the largest survey of Scottish gardens ever mounted and the first such guidebook to all that Scotland can offer garden and plant lovers. Including descriptions of virtually all Scotland's gardens which are open to the public, it recommends when to visit and what to look out for. Gardens are described in a pithy and lively style. Also covered are specialist nurseries, garden centres, wildflower walks, shows, public parks and more. The book includes useful maps showing routes for day trips and short-break tours and is illustrated throughout with full-colour images by Ray Cox. This is the ideal book for the Scot or the tourist who wishes to explore the world of gardens and plants in Scotland.

A Food Forest in Your Garden

A Food Forest in Your Garden
Author: Alan Carter
Publisher:
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-11-25
Genre:
ISBN: 9781856232999

Grow your own seasonal food in a low maintenance, nature-friendly garden that feels like a woodland glade. Scottish plant expert Alan Carter shows you how to plan and plant a temperate forest garden for any sized plot--from a small terrace garden to an allotment or smallholding. Learn how to successfully layer root crops, fruit, perennial vegetables and edible shrubs below tree crops, cultivating an edible garden that doesn't look like a traditional vegetable plot. A forest garden is wildlife friendly, provides nutrient-dense and often unusual food through every season, and requires minimal work to maintain. The first part of this in-depth, practical guide explains how a forest garden works, how to map your climate and design your own plot, and how to manage it with mulching, weeding and pruning. What's not to like about Alan's motto of "the more you pick, the more you get," and intriguing concepts such as the Panda Principle? The second half of the book is a detailed directory of more than 170 plants and fungi suitable for a wide range of temperate climates, complete with growing, harvesting and cooking tips based on over a decade of Alan's own experience. Learn how to incorporate traditional fruit and vegetable crops, such as strawberries and beans, into your forest garden, and how to weave in more unusual crops, such as shiitake mushrooms and ferns. Techniques from agro-ecology bring regenerative farming into the backyard, helping you to work towards greater self-sufficiency. Useful tips on seed saving and propagation help keep plant costs low, and there is practical advice on soil health, compost--essential for all no dig, organic gardeners--and pests and disease. A Food Forest in Your Garden will help you create your own productive forest gardens even in cooler climates.

Scottish Plant Lore

Scottish Plant Lore
Author: Gregory J. Kenicer
Publisher: Birlinn
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781780276908

Scotland's plants define its landscape - from the heather moorlands of its iconic habitats to the weeds and a garden plants of its towns and cities. Plants have shaped the country's domestic economy and culture over centuries, providing resources for agriculture and industry as well as food, drink and medicines. They have even inspired children's games and been used as components in magical charms Drawing together traditional knowledge from archives and oral histories with the work of some of the country's finest botanical artists, this book is a magnificent celebration of the enormous wealth of Scottish plant lore.

No Dig

No Dig
Author: Charles Dowding
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 631
Release: 2022-09-06
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 0744077753

Work in partnership with nature to nurture your soil for healthy plants and bumper crops - without back-breaking effort! Have you ever wondered how to transform a weedy plot into a thriving vegetable garden? Well now you can! By following the simple steps set out in No Dig, in just a few short hours you can revolutionize your vegetable patch with plants already in the ground from day one! Charles Dowding is on a mission to teach that there is no need to dig over the soil, but by minimizing intervention you are actively boosting soil productivity. In fact, The less you dig, the more you preserve soil structure and nurture the fungal mycelium vital to the health of all plants. This is the essence of the No Dig system that Charles Dowding has perfected over a lifetime growing vegetables. So put your gardening gloves on and get ready to discover: - Guides and calendars of when to sow, grow, and harvest. - Inspiring information and first-hand guidance from the author - “Delve deeper” features look in-depth at the No Dig system and the facts and research that back it up. - The essential role of compost and how to make your own at home. - The importance of soil management, soil ecology, and soil health. Now one of the hottest topics in environmental science, this "wood-wide web" has informed Charles's practice for decades, and he's proven it isn't just trees that benefit - every gardener can harness the power of the wood-wide web. Featuring newly- commissioned step-by-step photography of all stages of growing vegetables and herbs, and all elements of No Dig growing, shot at Charles’s beautiful market garden in Somerset, you too will be able to grow more veg with less time and effort, and in harmony with nature - so join the No Dig revolution today! A must-have volume for followers of Charles Dowding who fervently believe in his approach to low input, high yield gardening, as well as gardeners who want to garden more lightly on the earth, with environmentally friendly techniques like organic and No Dig.

Dangerous Garden

Dangerous Garden
Author: David C. Stuart
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2004
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780674011045

As our earliest ancestors migrated out of Africa, they encountered entirely new floras. By sampling these, they found plants that appeared to (and sometimes did) heal wounds, cure maladies, and ease troubled minds. This process of discovery continues today, as multinational pharmaceutical companies bioprospect in the globe's remaining wild places for the next tamoxifen or digitalis. The gardener and botanist David Stuart tells the fascinating story of botanical medicine, revealing more than soothing balms and heroic cures. Most of the truly powerful and effective medicinal plants are double-edged, with a dark side to balance the light. They can heal or kill, calm or enslave, lift depression or summon our gods and monsters. Often the difference between these polar effects is a simple change in dosage. Stuart chronicles the tale of how the herbal materia medica of healing and killing plants has sparked wars, helped establish intercontinental trade routes, and seeded fortunes. As plant species traveled the globe, their medicinal uses evolved over miles and through centuries. Plants once believed to be cure-alls are now considered too dangerous for use. Others, once so valuable that they sowed the wealth of empires, are merely spices on the kitchen shelf. David Stuart recounts engrossing human stories too, not only of the scientists, explorers, and doctors who gathered, named, and prescribed these plants but also the shamans, magicians, and quacks who claimed to possess the ultimate herbal aphrodisiac or elixir.

Garden Plants for Scotland

Garden Plants for Scotland
Author: Kenneth Cox
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-06-15
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 9780711236684

Scotland is one of the best places in the world to garden. Its maritime climate, ample rainfall, and the rarity of severe droughts and really hot weather mean that huge numbers of plants grow well there. But the climate varies considerably - from the colder, wetter, windier mountainous areas to the west coast where tender plants can be grown outdoors all year round - and choosing plants that are suited to the local conditions is critical to success. Kenneth Cox and Raoul Curtis-Machin have evaluated the performance of thousands of plants in gardens all over Scotland, drawing on the knowledge and experience of many gardeners and nurserymen, and in this book they describe - with over 800 photographs - the most reliable shrubs, conifers, trees, fruit and perennials for Scotland. In this book Scottish gardeners will find accurate information and hundreds of great plants ideally suited to where they live.

Fruit and Vegetables for Scotland

Fruit and Vegetables for Scotland
Author: Kenneth Cox
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2020-05-07
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1788853539

GARDEN MEDIA GUILD PRACTICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR Fruit and vegetables have formed a fundamental part of the Scottish diet for thousands of years. This fascinating and practical book explores the history of fruit, vegetable and herb growing in Scotland, and provides a contemporary guide to the best techniques for growing produce, whether in a garden, allotment, patio or window box. Packed with hundreds of colour photographs, drawings and descriptive diagrams, this is a detailed and comprehensive bible for the gardener. In addition to advice on climate and soil conditions, it has contacts for organisations, specialist societies, nurseries and suppliers, as well as a detailed bibliography and list of useful websites. This is an essential reference book for anyone aiming to get the best possible results from their garden produce north of the border.

The Jewel Garden

The Jewel Garden
Author: Monty Don
Publisher: Two Roads
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1444718789

'TRULY INSPIRING' Mail on Sunday Now familiar to millions of Gardeners' World fans as Longmeadow (the home of Nigel & Nellie), this is the story of Monty & Sarah Don's early days there. The Jewel Garden is the story of the garden that bloomed from the muddy fields around the Dons' Tudor farmhouse, a perfect metaphor for the Monty and Sarah's own rise from the ashes of a spectacular commercial failure in the late '80s . At the same time The Jewel Garden is the story of a creative partnership that has weathered the greatest storm, and a testament to the healing powers of the soil. Monty Don has always been candid about the garden's role in helping him to pull back from the abyss of depression; The Jewel Garden elaborates on this much further. Written in an optimistic, autobiographical vein, Monty and Sarah's story is truly an exploration of what it means to be a gardener.

Plants for Your Food Forest

Plants for Your Food Forest
Author: Plants for a Future
Publisher: Independently Published
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre:
ISBN:

A food forest is a form of regenerative farming, a designed ecosystem modelled on nature, with the aim of growing food and sequestering carbon at the same time. As a forest it will consist of plants which occupy different layers, typically a canopy layer, shrub layer, herb layer and climbers. All plants will be perennials in order for the soil to be wild, undisturbed and regenerating. All plants will be food producing, will sequester carbon in their woody parts or in the soil, and will have useful functions in the forest ecosystem. The choice of what to grow in a food forest is challenging. It is not simply a matter of deciding what would be good to eat, and planting the corresponding food plants in beds alongside rows or patches of woodland. Most books about food forests, woodland gardening or carbon farming concentrate on the design principles involved. The focus of this book is the plants, their characteristics and personalities, what they have to offer a food forest ecosystem, as well as what kinds of foods they yield. We have selected over 500 plants that provide a mix of different growing conditions, plant size and structure, type of food, and contribution to a food forest ecosystem. There is also a quick-reference table of the key characteristics. The featured plants are arranged in sections corresponding to Forest Layer: Shrubs, Groundcover Shrubs, Trees, Herbaceous Plants, Herbaceous Groundcover Plants, Running Bamboos, Bulbs, Climbers. Further details of all the plants described here are available from the PFAF Plants Database, which can be accessed free of charge at pfaf.org