The Gardener's Weather Bible: How to Predict and Prepare for Garden Success in Any Kind of Weather [Paperback]

Sally Roth (Author)

Book Description

Series: Rodale Organic Gardening Books | Publication Date: April 5, 2003

Your Guide to Creating an Easy-Care Garden Full of Fragrance and Color

Have you always wanted to plant roses but are afraid they are too difficult to grow? Fear no more. Growing Beautiful Roses takes the intimidation (and the chemicals) out of growing the world's most legendary flower.

This gorgeous and rich instructional guide offers a holistic approach to growing these perennial favorites. Author Barbara Wilde presents tips and advice for choosing healthy roses, preparing the soil, and recognizing and preventing disease; plus, she takes the mystery out of pruning. Perhaps even more valuable, Wilde includes a gallery of more than 100 remarkable roses that are the most hardy and the most disease and pest resistant, making them the best roses for organic gardening. In addition, she takes you beyond the rigidity of a formal rose garden by showing you how to combine roses with other plants, including grasses, herbs, wildflowers, vines, shrubs, perennials, and annuals.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gardeners put up with it, complain about it, and even delight in it, but, asks author Sally Roth in The Gardener's Weather Bible, do we truly work with weather to make the most of whatever the day brings? No matter if the skies are glorious or gloomy, Roth educates gardeners to become more attuned to weather's dramatic impact on how our gardens grow.

A spiffy distant relative of the Old Farmer's Almanac, The Gardener's Weather Bible is part weather primer, with information on air masses, storm forecasting, as well as the ever-elusive question of why the sky is blue, and part general garden guide. Roth touches on topics directly related to climate, such as conserving water or mitigating the effects of wind, while stretching freely into subjects like worms and erosion control, plants with night-time fragrance, and zodiac constellations.

Whether presenting folklore or technical information, Roth's style is upbeat and friendly, if not somewhat chatty. Of particular value are a series of "to do" lists for various conditions-clear, cloudy, windy, stormy, or sunny winter days. To ease understanding, nearly every page contains a chart, diagram, map, illustration, bullet points, or other highlighted information. --Jennifer Wyatt

Review

"This no-nonsense guide belongs on every rose gardener's bookshelf, as Barbara Wilde presents all the information gardeners need to grow roses organically. Growing Beautiful Roses is straightforward, easy to access, and organized for maximum utility. Especially interesting are the chapters on the history of the various groups of old roses and on combining roses with other plants in the garden."--Anne Halpin, professional gardener, editor, and author of many gardening books, including Morning Glories and Moonflowers

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (April 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875968872
• ISBN-13: 978-0875968872
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,598,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sally Roth is a lifelong naturalist and gardener and is the author of Natural Landscaping and Taylor's Guide to Ornamental Grasses. She lives in New Harmony, Indiana.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For gardeners and weather watchers alike!, February 9, 2004

By 

Jessica Ferguson "threelittlebirds" (Woodbury, NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gardener's Weather Bible: How to Predict and Prepare for Garden Success in Any Kind of Weather (Paperback)

The Gardener's Weather Bible, in a combination of folklore and science, explains all possible weather phenomena with basic descriptions and asides and then applies this information to gardens and to determining your own garden's microclimate. As a Rodale Press book, it guarantees you will find interesting natural notes like how placing a plant in a too windy a site can cause a "pruning" anomaly called krummholz or can keep winged pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds from visiting.

Chapters include: Weather Climate and Seasons, Developing Weather Sense, Reading the Sky, Reading the Night Sky, Winds Fronts and Storms, Rain Ice and Snow, Spring Weather, Summer Weather, Fall Weather, Winter Weather, Animal Clues to Weather, Birds Bugs and Butterflies.

A great gardening book for those of us who are spending too much time on amending our soil, dividing our perennials, pruning our roses and other downward looking gardening delights. Once in a while, look to the sky!