Download or read book Remarkable Plants That Shape Our World written by Helen Bynum and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2014-09-22 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A glorious celebration of the beauty, diversity, importance and sheer wonder of the most remarkable plants that shape our world, with exquisite illustrations from the incomparable collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The authors are expert guides to the intriguing histories, significance and uses of over 80 key plants, revealing our complex relationship with them, both for use and beauty. Rich in cultural, historical, botanical and symbolic associations, the plants presented here, from every corner of the globe, both familiar and bizarre, all have fascinating stories to tell. Sections cover every aspect of our interaction with plants, starting with foods that laid the foundations for the development of civilizations, such as wheat, rice and maize, and those that enliven our diet, such as saffron and spices. Other sections look at plants that have helped to house us, including bamboo and the oak, or crops that have made people rich, notably tea, coffee and sugar cane. Many plants have been used medicinally, from willow to the Madagascar periwinkle. Some are the objects of obsession or are revered, including the tulip, the rose and the lotus, and some are bizarre, such as the world's largest flower, rafflesia, which smells of rotting flesh. For anyone interested in the beauty and diversity of plants, this beautiful book, richly illustrated with over 200 drawings and paintings, will be an inspiration and a delight.
Download or read book A New Garden Ethic written by Benjamin Vogt and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a time of climate change and mass extinction, how we garden matters more than ever: “An outstanding and deeply passionate book.” —Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals Plenty of books tell home gardeners and professional landscape designers how to garden sustainably, what plants to use, and what resources to explore. Yet few examine why our urban wildlife gardens matter so much—not just for ourselves, but for the larger human and animal communities. Our landscapes push aside wildlife and in turn diminish our genetically programmed love for wildness. How can we get ourselves back into balance through gardens, to speak life's language and learn from other species? Benjamin Vogt addresses why we need a new garden ethic, and why we urgently need wildness in our daily lives—lives sequestered in buildings surrounded by monocultures of lawn and concrete that significantly harm our physical and mental health. He examines the psychological issues around climate change and mass extinction as a way to understand how we are short-circuiting our response to global crises, especially by not growing native plants in our gardens. Simply put, environmentalism is not political; it's social justice for all species marginalized today and for those facing extinction tomorrow. By thinking deeply and honestly about our built landscapes, we can create a compassionate activism that connects us more profoundly to nature and to one another.
Download or read book The Humane Gardener written by Nancy Lawson and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.
Download or read book Five Plant Gardens written by Nancy J. Ondra and published by Storey Publishing. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With literally hundreds of choices, it can be overwhelming to decide which perennials to plant in your garden. Nancy J. Ondra takes the stressful guesswork out of perennial garden planning by offering 52 vibrant designs, each made up of only five plants. Ondra tailors each simple design to a specific set of growing conditions, with plenty of tips to help your planting mature. Enjoy gardens full of sun-drenched blooming flowers and shade-loving greenery for years to come.
Download or read book Dangerous Garden written by David C. Stuart and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As our earliest ancestors migrated out of Africa, they encountered entirely new floras. By sampling these, they found plants that appeared to (and sometimes did) heal wounds, cure maladies, and ease troubled minds. This process of discovery continues today, as multinational pharmaceutical companies bioprospect in the globe's remaining wild places for the next tamoxifen or digitalis. The gardener and botanist David Stuart tells the fascinating story of botanical medicine, revealing more than soothing balms and heroic cures. Most of the truly powerful and effective medicinal plants are double-edged, with a dark side to balance the light. They can heal or kill, calm or enslave, lift depression or summon our gods and monsters. Often the difference between these polar effects is a simple change in dosage. Stuart chronicles the tale of how the herbal materia medica of healing and killing plants has sparked wars, helped establish intercontinental trade routes, and seeded fortunes. As plant species traveled the globe, their medicinal uses evolved over miles and through centuries. Plants once believed to be cure-alls are now considered too dangerous for use. Others, once so valuable that they sowed the wealth of empires, are merely spices on the kitchen shelf. David Stuart recounts engrossing human stories too, not only of the scientists, explorers, and doctors who gathered, named, and prescribed these plants but also the shamans, magicians, and quacks who claimed to possess the ultimate herbal aphrodisiac or elixir.
Download or read book The Plants That Shaped Our Gardens written by David C. Stuart and published by . This book was released on 2004-07-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do gardens look the way they do? The conventional view of garden history is turned upside down in this book, which argues that the plants themselves have driven the evolution of the modern garden. From the Ottoman Empire to China to the Americas, explorers brought new plants back to Europe, causing hybridization. The book concludes that continued plant prospecting may prove essential to preserving botanic diversity and disappearing species.
Download or read book The Life of Plants written by Emanuele Coccia and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We barely talk about them and seldom know their names. Philosophy has always overlooked them; even biology considers them as mere decoration on the tree of life. And yet plants give life to the Earth: they produce the atmosphere that surrounds us, they are the origin of the oxygen that animates us. Plants embody the most direct, elementary connection that life can establish with the world. In this highly original book, Emanuele Coccia argues that, as the very creator of atmosphere, plants occupy the fundamental position from which we should analyze all elements of life. From this standpoint, we can no longer perceive the world as a simple collection of objects or as a universal space containing all things, but as the site of a veritable metaphysical mixture. Since our atmosphere is rendered possible through plants alone, life only perpetuates itself through the very circle of consumption undertaken by plants. In other words, life exists only insofar as it consumes other life, removing any moral or ethical considerations from the equation. In contrast to trends of thought that discuss nature and the cosmos in general terms, Coccia’s account brings the infinitely small together with the infinitely big, offering a radical redefinition of the place of humanity within the realm of life.
Download or read book The Plants that Shaped Our Gardens written by David C. Stuart and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history begins with two earth-changing events - the establishment of colonies in the Americas and the spread of the Turkish empire. Both brought the first astonishing wave of flowering exotics to gardens across Europe.
Download or read book Garden Flora written by Noel Kingsbury and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2016-10-05 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A beautifully illustrated reference book covers the origins, ecology and history of popular garden plants.” —Shelf Awareness The oldest rose fossil was found in Colorado and dates to 35 million years ago. Marigolds, infamous for their ability to self-seed, are named for an Etruscan god who sprang from a ploughed field. And daffodils—an icon of spring—were introduced to Britain by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago. Every garden plant has an origination story, and Garden Flora, by noted garden designer Noel Kingsbury, shares them in a beautifully compelling way. This lushly illustrated survey of 133 of the most commonly grown plants explains where each plant came from and the journey it took into home gardens. Kingsbury tells intriguing tales of the most important plant hunters, breeders, and gardeners throughout history, and explores the unexpected ways plants have been used. Richly illustrated with an eclectic mix of new and historical photos, botanical art, and vintage seed packets and catalogs, Garden Flora is a must-have reference for every gardener and plant lover.
Download or read book My Garden Book written by Jamaica Kincaid and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2001-05-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our finest writers on one of her greatest loves. Jamaica Kincaid's first garden in Vermont was a plot in the middle of her front lawn. There, to the consternation of more experienced friends, she planted only seeds of the flowers she liked best. In My Garden (Book) she gathers all she loves about gardening and plants, and examines it generously, passionately, and with sharp, idiosyncratic discrimination. Kincaid's affections are matched in intensity only by her dislikes. She loves spring and summer but cannot bring herself to love winter, for it hides the garden. She adores the rhododendron Jane Grant, and appreciates ordinary Blue Lake string beans, but abhors the Asiatic lily. The sources of her inspiration -- seed catalogues, the gardener Gertrude Jekyll, gardens like Monet's at Giverny -- are subjected to intense scrutiny. She also examines the idea of the garden on Antigua, where she grew up. My Garden (Book) is an intimate, playful, and penetrating book on gardens, the plants that fill them, and the persons who tend them.
Download or read book How to Move Like a Gardener written by Deb Soule and published by Steiner Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a basic understanding of biodynamic gardening in growing and preparing plant-based medicines.
Download or read book Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens written by Scott Ogden and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I can't imagine a designer or avid gardener who wouldn't want this on their bookshelf.” —Garden Design Online Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens is a practical guide to the best 200 plants guaranteed to thrive in low-water gardens. Plant entries provide the common and botanical name, the regions where the plant is best adapted, growth and care information, and notes on pests and disease. This practical and inspiring guide includes a variety of plants, from trees to succulents, perennials to bulbs, all selected for their wide adaptability and ornamental value. Companion plants, creative design ideas, and full color photography make this guide a must-have resource for any sustainable gardener.
Download or read book A Way to Garden written by Margaret Roach and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A Way to Garden prods us toward that ineffable place where we feel we belong; it’s a guide to living both in and out of the garden.” —The New York Times Book Review For Margaret Roach, gardening is more than a hobby, it’s a calling. Her unique approach, which she calls “horticultural how-to and woo-woo,” is a blend of vital information you need to memorize and intuitive steps you must simply feel and surrender to. In A Way to Garden, Roach imparts decades of garden wisdom on seasonal gardening, ornamental plants, vegetable gardening, design, gardening for wildlife, organic practices, and much more. She also challenges gardeners to think beyond their garden borders and to consider the ways gardening can enrich the world. Brimming with beautiful photographs of Roach’s own garden, A Way to Garden is practical, inspiring, and a must-have for every passionate gardener.
Download or read book Why Grow That When You Can Grow This written by Andrew Keys and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's a tired turn of phrase, but the grass is always greener on the other side. And for gardeners, it's not just the grass—it's the flowers, the shrubs, and the trees. No longer! Pining to grow lilac but lack the full sun? Try the fragrant pink and white flowers of Korean spice viburnum. Love the drama of canna but need something hardier? Try the bold foliage of variegated fleece flower. Why Grow That When You Can Grow This? offers hundreds of all-star alternatives that replace—and often outshine—popular problem plants. Garden designer Andrew Keys makes it easier than ever to skip over the fussy plant prima donnas and move toward the equally gorgeous understudies. Each profile shows the problem plant and offers three alternatives that include three or more of the original plant's characteristics—hardiness, shape, color, texture, light, and size. With this fun and accessible guide, you can discover the secret to choosing the plants destined to be the new stars of your garden.
Download or read book My Favorite Plant written by Jamaica Kincaid and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1998-11 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful compendium of writing on plants. The passion for gardening and the passion for words come together in this inspired anthology, a collection of essays on topics as diverse as beans and roses, by writers who garden and by gardeners who write. Among the contributors are Christopher Lloyd, on poppies; Marina Warner, who remembers the Guinée rose; and Henri Cole, who offers poems on the bearded iris and on peonies. There is also an explanation of the sexiness of castor beans from Michael Pollan and an essay from Maxine Kumin on how, as Henry David Thoreau put it, one "[makes] the earth say beans instead of grass." Most of the essays are new in print, but Colette, Katharine S. White, D. H. Lawrence, and several other old favorites make appearances. Jamaica Kincaid, the much-admired writer and a passionate gardener herself, rounds up this diverse crew. A wonderful gift for green thumbs, My Favorite Plant is a happy collection of fresh takes on old friends. Other contributors include: Hilton Als Mary Keen Ken Druse Duane Michals Michael Fox David Raffeld Ian Frazier Graham Stuart Thomas Daniel Hinkley Wayne Winterrowd
Download or read book Pretty Tough Plants written by Plant Select and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2017-05-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tough-but-beautiful plant picks There’s a growing demand for dependably hardy plants that require less maintenance and less water, but look no less beautiful in the garden. Plant Select—the leading purveyor of plants designed to thrive in difficult climates—meets this need by promoting plants that allow gardeners everywhere to have stunning, environmentally-friendly gardens that use fewer resources. Pretty Tough Plants highlights 135 of Plant Select’s top plant picks. Each profile features a color photograph and specific details about the plant’s size, best features, and bloom season, along with cultural needs, landscape features, and design ideas. The plant list includes perennials and annuals, groundcovers, grasses, shrubs, and trees. A chart at the end of the book makes it easy to choose the right plants for specific conditions and needs.
Download or read book Gardening with Native Plants of the South written by Sally Wasowski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today’s South, where fine gardening is a tradition, many homeowners and professional gardeners are discovering a vast “new” palette of plant materials—native plants. They are realizing that these native wildflowers, trees, shrubs, groundcovers, vines, and grasses are far better suited, and therefore easier to grow and maintain, than most of the imported plants that populate traditional landscapes. In this book, the authors offer an exciting vision of the many possibilities and advantages of “going native.” Lavishly illustrated with more than 250 gorgeous color photographs, this book is both an introduction to more than 200 of the most familiar and easiest-to-find native plants of the South and a basic primer on how to use them effectively.
