Customer Reviews

Mrs. Greenthumbs Plows Ahead: Five Steps to the Drop-Dead Gorgeous Garden of Your Dreams

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best garden book I've seen yet, and my shelves are lined with them. There is very useful gardening information here, unlike many of the pretty but impractical British books. It's especially helpful if you live and garden in the Northeast as the author does. She even covers the deer problem and what kinds of things they really won't eat. This book is also very funny and hard to put down. It will be on and off my shelf a lot this Spring as I re-work my garden with her great tips!

I ordered this book because I laughed til I wept reading the first Mrs. Greenthumbs book, and at the same time dog-eared pages to refer back to for specific information. A perfect gardening reference (or would have been perfect, with the addition of good drawings)! This sequel, however, is Mrs. Greenthumbs Lite. Though the lovely drawings in this volume are welcome and helpful, they feel like padding added to a thin mixture. While the material is useful and clear there just isn't much of it. Also, the humor in this book definitely strains for its effects and ends up being more vulgar than genuinely amusing (not the case with Mrs. Greenthumbs I, which is hilarious and, yes, somewhat risqué).

Cassandra Danz sprinkles funny anecdotes and asides over a foundation of good practical advice. This is a great book for busy, thrifty gardeners who want a fabulous garden, but don't have a legion of house servants. "Mrs. Greenthumbs" gave me many intriguing ideas on how to design a garden, like how to create "garden rooms" as well as using proportion and color schemes to advantage. She also brought what I *thought* was a placid, tranquil hobby to bodice-ripping, lusty life. Read it. You'll see.

I love her books! They inspire me to garden, even though my thumbs aren't particularly green, and she does it in such a humorous fashion that I can't stop reading. I recommend her to all my so-so gardening friends and acquaintances.

I really liked the first book for its saucy, slightly risque humor mixed with the garden advice.
I follow that "as long as you're digging a hole, plant several things in it" advice religiously and with good success.

When I grow up, I want to be like Mrs. Greenthumbs!

This book doesn't have any glossy photos - just so much practical gardening information that it's the BEST gardening book I ever read (and I've read many, many, many). Cassandra Danz shares her successes - and her failures - and hard-learned lessons in a funny, easy-to-read, month-by-month format. I LOVE this!!!

What a wonderful garden book! This is the first garden book I've found that explains the idea of proportion in garden design, with many specific examples to make the concept clear and easy to understand. (For example, if you have a six foot fence, the bed alongside it should be four feet deep. Read the book to get the mathematical formula.) She also describes the idea of "garden rooms" as a way to organize a property's landscaping. Very, very helpful and inspiring.

I first happened across this book on display at my library and was entranced. The breezy style and down to earth advice were just right for my overworked, January-numbed mind. And after about the twentieth time Cassandra hammered away at the concept of garden "rooms," something finally clicked. I know this sounds corny, but one of those lightbulbs flashed on above my head, and I finally thought, "Hey, I really can do this in my own yard! I can have GARDENS!" Her clear, personal, descriptions of how to create gardens have radically changed how I view my little suburban yard and the act of gardening. And yes, I'm happily planning for spring.

What a treat to read a gardening book that is a bit irreverant but full of information that I have not found in other gardening guides. The information on drifiting, proportion and scale has completely revitalized my approach and garden design. And I found myself laughing out loud at her stories and metaphors!