The Natural Gardener Book

Even the most committed of gardeners must occasionally straighten their aching back and wonder if it couldn't be a bit simpler. The enlightened message of The Natural Gardener is that it can. Attend properly to soil, climate and aspect, suggests Chris Beardshaw, and the gardener is in possession of enough information to begin to establish the kind of self-perpetuating environment nature achieves so effortlessly. This might seems obvious, but, as Beardshaw points out, it's surprising how many gardeners ignore the qualities of their soil, for example, planting anything they fancy and hoping for the best. He begins, therefore, with a chapter on Understanding Your Environment, which looks at the varieties of physical condition under which most of us garden, then groups these into five basic natural garden types towards which they seem to tend: rock, water, wetland, meadow and woodland. These terms suggest, perhaps, a scale beyond the gardener without access to a couple of acres of bog or mountainside, but this is not necessarily the case. Nature is infinitely scalable, and its equilibrium may be introduced into the smallest garden. Even a couple of small trees can create enough broken shade to establish a community of woodland plants; and an exposed, stony corner can stand in for an upland limestone pavement. This kind of gardening is all about plants and planting, and the care of plants, and paying attention to their needs; and in that sense (a very good one) is deeply traditional. --Robin DavidsonRead More