Customer Reviews

Month-By-Month Gardening in Wisconsin

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Book contains about 370 pages divided into 11 major sections. Sections are Annuals (29 pages), Bulbs (29 pages), Fruits (34 pages), Herbs and Vegetables (30 pages), Houseplants (30 pages), Lawns (26 pages), Perennials (30 pages), Roses (28 pages), Shrubs (32 pages), Trees (30 pages), and Vines & Groundcovers (30 pages).

What makes the book unique is that each section discusses the material for every month (hence the title, "month by month"). Each month contains about 2 pages of instructions for planning, planting, care, watering, fertilizer, pests, and pruning. Each section starts with several pages introducing the topic.

Example of Melinda Myers advice: Tree section (April), "Do not prune Oaks and Honeylocust once growth begins. Wait until the dormant season to avoid disease problems".

Oops, I wish I would have had this book earlier. I did prune my Oak in April a few years back, and I now have a disease problem.

Besides the great plant instructions, the books contains amazing maps of Wisconsin (page size maps with county names). Maps contain USDA Cold Hardiness, Annual Precipation, Average First Frost, and Average Last Frost. Also includes lists of crop dates, UW Extension Service addresses, dry tolerate perennials, and much much more.

This is an excellent wealth of plant tips for anyone gardening in Wisconsin. It's a must have book!

This is an excellent book with thorough, well-organized sections on indoor and outdoor plants (houseplants make up only one of the chapters: this is mainly about outdoor gardening). If you are interested in how to treat roses, for example, in Wisconsin, the chapter on roses has an introduction, a planting chart, and then a couple of pages on each month from January through December. Organizing the information in this way allows you to quickly consult and read about what you're interested in: Lawns, Roses, Shrubs, etc.

This strength is also the book's only weakness: if you have a lawn, shrubs, bulbs, annuals, perennials, roses, vines, and such in your yard, you're going to spend a lot of time flipping back and forth between sections of the book. Normally I subtract one star for this type of organization, because I do not enjoy flipping back and forth between sections of a book, just to find the information I need. In this case, however, I think the book is so well written, with such great information on pruning, watering, mulching, and so on, in all the different regions of Wisconsin, that I can't give this book fewer than five stars. And, it's quite possible that organizing the book by month rather than by vegetation could have proved equally "flipping." If you're a Wisconsin gardener, you could benefit from this book!

There is a lot of useful information in this book. I love the idea of getting tips for gardening in our state at specific times of the year. This book has answered many of my questions. The only thing I don't like is having to flip through pages since you are often referred to different chapters. Overall I highly recommend this book.

This is a must-have book for Wisconsin gardeners. The book is organized according by months, and it tells you exactly what to do each month for your garden.