The All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening: Now All Organic! [Hardcover]

Trevor Cole (Author), Fern Marshall Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2009

The best just got better. Reader's Digest's best-selling gardening book is totally revised and updated with hundreds of new plant varieties and all 4-color photos illustrations, plus ALL-ORGANIC solutions and simple projects for eco- friendly gardening.

Written by experts, this full-color edition contains all new illustrations, photos, tips, and tricks for everything from organic fertilizing and composting to rotating a vegetable garden. Diagrams on beneficial bugs, weeds, and plant disorders, sections on bulb care for both outdoor and indoor planting, proper sowing of annuals, and properly planting perennials help make your garden beautiful, every year. And it's all presented in clear, easy-to-understand language.

This practical guide is a refreshing gardening sourcebook that features:
* All-new 2,500 full-color stunning photographs and 800 full-color practical step- by-step diagrams and illustrations
* An extensive plant directory of more than 700 plants-plus hundreds of new plant varieties-listed by common and botanical names
* New information on eco-friendly gardening-including recipes for non-toxic fertilizer and disease & pest controls-as well as recommendations for planting to attract hummingbirds or repel deer
* Over 200 pages of charts that provide easy-to-access information on the latest trends in plants, problem-solving tips, new hardiness zone maps, and more
* All-new organic garden guidance-how to garden safely without nasty chemicals, from planting and fertilizing to pest control
* Directions for specialized and trustworthy gardening websites where gardeners can get additional information
* Comprehensive index that features cross-referenced common and botanical names for absolute accuracy

With All New Illustrated Guide to Gardening as your guide, you'll be designing and implementing a gorgeous organic garden in no time.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"There is enjoyment to be found in the book simply [by] reading about so many different plants and the art of gardening."
-National Geographic.com

"The illustrations are excellent and useful...The water garden section is terrific, as are the sections on pruning, vegetables, herbs and plant disorders. Chapters on individual trees, shrubs, vines, fruit trees and bulbs are well-done and easy to use."
-Miami Herald

"A truly useful volume and one which I would recommend that the beginner as well as the seasoned gardener include on their resource shelves. Excellent illustrations show step-by-step techniques such as planting, pruning and pinching. All of these bells and whistles are nice, but for me the proof in the pudding, however, is how useful the information contained in a book is at answering the questions I have. The All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening is a valuable addition to your garden library. Hey, it could actually be your garden library."
-Examiner.com, Insider Source for Everything Local

"The All New Illustrated Guide to Gardening should be on every serious gardener's bookshelf or coffee table."
-Mindconnection.com

"Not only informative but beautiful."
-BrothersJudd.com

"Highly recommend it...An invaluable resource for the novice and expert gardener alike."
-Bookloons.com

"This book will certainly be a comprehensive addition to a gardener's reference collection."
-GiftofGreen.com

"This book is definitely an all inclusive how to guide for gardeners."
-MotherEarthsGarden.com

"We are really impressed with this book. It's the gardener's equivalent of the Physicians' Desk Reference"
-GrinningPlanet.com

"I absolutely loved this book! I've been looking for a great gardening book for awhile and this one did the trick."
-NotEnoughBooks.blogspot.com

RAVE REVIEWS FOR OUR PREVIOUS EDITION
"For gardeners who know the difference between an annual and a perennial, this revised edition of the classic best-seller covers all the bases-from how and when to prune shrubs and trees to planting a small orchard. It has a particularly thorough section on pest and disease control.
-Real Simple (July, 2008)

"...Gardening books are good gifts for aficionados and nature lovers...there are thousands of gardening titles to choose from and Reader's Digest New Illustrated Guide to Gardening is one of the most popular..."
-Victoria Advocate, TX, (December, 2004)

"...provides a detailed hands-on, how-to guide to maintaining indoor and outdoor plants..."
-Publishers Weekly (June, 2002)

About the Author

Trevor Cole is widely considered as one of Canada's top gardening experts. He studied horticulture at the Royal Botanical Gardens, in the UK and was curator of the Dominion Arboretum in Ottawa for over 20 years. Cole is the author of many magazine articles on gardening as well as many books.
Fern Marshall Bradley is the former gardening books editor for Rodale Press. She is best-known for the best-selling Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, and has also authored or edited many books, including Reader's Digest's Vegetable Gardening..

Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Readers Digest (February 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762109998
• ISBN-13: 978-0762109999
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #378,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Fern Marshall Bradley is the former gardening books editor for Rodale Press. She is best-known for the best-selling Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, and has also authored or edited many books, including Reader's Digest's Vegetable Gardening.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully done, tremendously useful, March 6, 2009

By 

M. L Lamendola (Merriam, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening: Now All Organic! (Hardcover)

This visually stunning book weighs about five pounds. Its 557 pages contain over 2,500 full-color photos, over 200 tables, and over 800 diagrams. Even the inside cover is a two-page spread color graphic. The plant directory covers over 700 plants.

I come from a family of gardeners, and have been gardening all of my life. I've grown some pretty impressive produce, using organic methods. And yet, I found myself learning new things as I read The All New Illustrated Guide to Gardening. This book defines "garden" to include the yard and general landscaping of a home, rather than just the vegetable garden out back. So it also addresses how to have a healthy lawn, keep trees strong, obtain the best shade, provide shelter for birds, and create peaceful areas within even a small back yard. And how to do all of that in a manner that is sustainable and affordable.

This book consists of twenty-seven chapters, each of which addresses a specific type of plant (except there are two topical chapters). It has an introduction and an extensive index. The two topical chapters "book end" the other chapters, and are:

*Planning your garden.
*Lawns and ground covers.

The chapters on plant types include:

*Lawns and ground covers.
*Ones on various types of flowers. For example, there are chapters on irises, peonies, and roses.
*Ferns.
*Bushes.
*Trees.
*Shrubs and vines.
*Fruits.
*Vegetables.
*Herbs.

The book has a big yellow "sticker" looking graphic on its cover. The "sticker" says, "Now All Organic" and that may put some people off. There is nothing weird about organic gardening. Most people use a mix of organic methods and chemical gardening. While you often get faster results from chemical gardening, you do not get better results.

Organic gardening has several benefits:

*Food smells and tastes better. There simply is no comparison. My organic tomatoes and peppers are bigger, darker, more aromatic, and tastier than those of chemical gardeners in this same locale. My plants are bigger, also.

*Food is better. It's got more nutrients and fewer toxins than chemically grown food.

*It's sustainable. Chemical gardening destroys the soil, creating dependency and then ultimately failure. Organic methods build the soil.

*It costs less money out of pocket. Sure, you are going to do more work than simply spraying chemicals on your garden. But you don't have to buy those chemicals in the first place.

*It's earth-friendly. You recycle kitchen scraps and yard waste, thereby reducing landfill requirements. If you need to use pesticides or fungicides, the recommended ones break down quickly and thus don't load our streams and soil with long-lasting chemicals.

*It's harmonious. Animals love an organic garden. Each spring, robins perch on my garden borders while I work the soil. They sing to me, as I dig up the worms they love to eat. Many kinds of birds visit my garden, eating many kinds of pests while there. Toads perch under the kale leaves, and consume massive numbers of insect pests.

I have a clover patch for a rabbit that lives in an evergreen in my backyard (for some reason, the robins keep the rabbit out of the vegetable garden). Bees visit me while I am tending my basil, and alight on my arms (they never sting, as I give them no reason to). Who needs a prescription tranquilizer, when you have this kind of peace and harmony?


Even when you follow organic gardening methods, you do have problems--up to, and including, crop failure. That's a risk you take. The information in this book helps reduce the risk. For example, you prepare the soil properly, plant a variety of crops (if one fails, you have others), rotate crops, watch for problems and catch them early, and so forth.

With organic methods, you don't try for perfection. You reduce risk factors and thus bring problems down to a tolerable level. In so doing, you eliminate the "cure is worse than the disease" problem that inflicts so many chemical-dependent gardeners. This book reminded me of my own laxity in practicing crop rotation. It's something I need to improve on ("It's the rotation, stupid.").

Planning, prevention, and focused attention are the "secrets" to successful organic gardening. These prevent you from needing to throw chemicals at a problem that shouldn't have occurred in the first place. Follow the practices recommended in this book, and the garden just about takes care of itself. In the event it doesn't, this book provides a wealth of advice on remediation.

Even if you already enjoy success as an organic gardener, you will no doubt find much value in this book. And, you could use it to teach people who ask why your flowers are so bright or your tomatoes taste so good.

Another benefit of reading a book like this is that understanding this information can help when you seek professional advice. When I visit my garden shop with a problem, the fact that I am generally following recommended practices means something to the experts. (I suppose it doesn't hurt to give a 9 lb honeydew melon to the resident expert, either....).

When you don't grasp the fundamentals, it's discouraging to those who could help you. This book clearly explains the fundamentals, and then takes you beyond them.

For a book of this size, there are surprisingly few editing errors. The writing was clear, requiring no mental gymnastics to understand what was being said. Typos are almost nonexistent, and the grammar is correct throughout. I have found correct grammar to be the exception, not the rule, in publishing today--kudos to those who care enough about readers to respect our language.

The All New Illustrated Guide to Gardening should be on every serious gardener's bookshelf or coffee table. Read it through once as a tutorial, and refer to it often. Its organization and arrangement make it easy to find answers to just about any gardening problem. Reviewing the applicable sections in winter before planning spring gardening activities is also a wise investment of time.

The one sad thing about this book is it's so useful that you're going to end up leaving its beautiful pages soiled and dog-eared. At least, I know that's what'll happen with my copy. Whether you want a great coffee table book or a practical guide to healthy gardening practices, this book is for you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT book that has a lot to offer!, March 14, 2010

By 

Chase "Sean Cruz" (Kissimmee, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening: Now All Organic! (Hardcover)

I love this book because as an organic gardener myself, it provides many useful tools to help you. One of my favorite features is at the end of each "section", It will tell you the best plants for each type of lawn or preference such as alkaline soil, acidic, shady, sunny, etc, etc, etc. That way, when I want to buy plants, ill know what works perfectly for my yard. The only bad thing I have to say is that if you don't have a lot of money, many of the suggestions will not work for you or you will have to find alternate methods than they provide.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Reference Guide You'll Ever Buy, July 23, 2009

By 

C. Jensen "numbers man" (Quad Cities, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening: Now All Organic! (Hardcover)

What a wonderful book! I have the original version from 30 years ago, but this newest version is even better. Updated pictures, many in color. Updated techniques. Updated for the many new varieties and hybrids. And the best of all, updated with all new organic solutions to help keep our family as healthy and safe as possible. Yes, a wonderful book.