Customer Reviews

Gardening for Dummies

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I am born and bred of centuries of pure inner-city living, apartment-dwelling stock. The lights blow out, tub leaks, or toilet won't stop flushing? Call the Super. Trees and dirt? You see them in the park. Flowers? You buy them to give, smile when you recieve, and go to admire them in the Botanical Gardens. Vegetables? You buy them at the supermarket or produce store; they often are frozen or come in cans.

My sister, whose entire repitoire of handyperson skills involved changing lightbulbs, recently moved to a house in what my family calls the "country." Translation: suburbs not reachable by the New York City Subway System. She's got a lawn and a backyard, and can achieve a goal we've always yearned for...a garden. But what do you do when for all of your childhood you got in trouble for digging in dirt because it ment an extra trip to the Laundromat? Because I learned everything I needed to know to get rock 'n rollin' on computers from the very excellent "Dummies" series, and there is no Julia Child or Martha Stewart of gardening that I know of, I bought her a copy of this very excellent book. She grew tulips, hyacinths, pansies, marigolds, and lots of other flowers I forget the names of. Tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, onions, green beans, cucumbers, etc. flourished under her stewardship and graced her table. Mint, Dill, Basil, and other herbs grown in her garden enhanced her cooking. She's organizing her work for the '98 season now.

The "Secret Garden" can be real! But don't be misled by the "Dummies" title. You don't have to be as totally green-thumb challenged as my family to benefit from this book. It's got a wealth of advice for anyone interested in growing a garden, from what experienced friends tell me.

I am a novice gardener who is trying to figure out how to maintain a well-landscaped property that I inherited. After the first couple of years of letting the place "rest on its laurels" (i.e., get by on its past grandeur and do nothing to maintain it except to water it every now and then, but otherwise neglecting it and letting it get weedy and rangy), I have finally tackled the project of educating myself about gardening and trying to restore some freshness and style to my garden. This book offers a very skillful overview of everything I need to know in order to take on this project. It gives an overview of pretty much every fundamental of gardening, giving enough explanation to help you understand the logic behind the "rules" of garden creation and maintenance, but without the kind of technical detail that would make it tedious or would glaze the eye of the beginner. I have found this an excellent "starter" book--gives the lay of the land, as it were, so that you can establish basic competence and understanding before you go onto more specialized knowledge. THANKS!

Let's say for a second that you DON'T live in one of those regions where most everything grows with little effort. If that's the case, and you'd really LIKE to have a great garden or flower bed, I highly recommend this book. I used to have the black thumb of death when it came to plants and flowers, but that has turned quite green since buying MacCaskey's book. So WHY does it help?

First, it has easy-to-access tip after tip about what plants and flowers need in general as well as what SPECIFIC plants need in order to thrive and look good. It helped me turn a garden that was at first forced upon me into one that looks as if I know what I am doing.

Second, it's also great because it helped me IDENTIFY a lot of the plants in my inherited garden, before telling me how to help them grow happily. After all, you can't really help plants grow if you don't know what they are. It even has extensive sections on growing vegetables and, to a lesser extent, fruit.

The language is great, too, in that it's well-organized in a way that makes it accessible while it teaches readers how to speak "gardenese" so you can ask for everything you need at your local nursery. In fact, when you have this book, even other people in your family start to turn to you for answers about gardening. I found this to be very cool, especially since I quickly found that, surprisingly enough, I now really do know a few things about gardening. Whoda thunk it?

But the most important thing that I know now, in regard to my garden, is that with this book in my back pocket, this coming Spring is going to be one of the best ever for my little corner of suburbia. So, if you're a plant expert (or just a Californian), you may not need this book. If, on the other hand, you are human and sometimes feel as though you live in the land of misfit plants, get this book. You'll be SO glad you did.

I am sometimes asked which gardening books I would recommend. I would have to say one of the top books in my arsenal is "Gardening for Dummies".

What makes this easy to understand book a worthwhile read are the many how-to's and tips it offers. It gets down to the basics of gardening.

You learn how to become a green thumb gardener by selecting plants that grow well in the area you live, the healthy advantages of growing different plants yourself, or just for the aesthetic value gardening offers.

An excellent guide for the aspiring gardener.

This is a very handy, easy to read resource for those of us who don't have a green thumb

As a self-proclaimed dummy, I could not keep any kind of plant alive. Indoor or outdoor, they all died. As a last ditch effort, I bought Gardening for Dummies.

The content is delivered in a clear, concise manner that I was able to understand easily. I guess you could say I was the target audience of this book. The book helped me learn why I kept killing plants and flowers and how to remedy that. Because of the book, I now know about zones and planting the correct type of plant in the correct way.

As a testament to this book, I have successfully kept a plant alive for over four years!

Great book for beginners. I purchased this one for a gift. My mom is now enjoying her new hobby, gardening. Thanks for the quick shipping!

Ad said mini. I thought it was just a smaller book, not a tiny book. But it was somewhat helpful.

Its ok but the larger one is far superior. I got this as a gift for a friend. Good for a stocking stuffer or for a small gift.

I AM A NOVICE GARDNER IN NEED OF HELPFUL, SIMPLE TERMS INFORMATION. THIS BOOK HAS REALLY HELPED.I AM THANKFUL FOR AMAZON.COM TO ORDER BOOKS AT A GREAT PRICE AND QUICK DELIVERY!