In two months, I will have been writing a weekly newspaper column for 32 years. During that time, I have written about books created by many garden writers. Now it is my turn. I have written a book on gardening.
“Greener View Gardening” was written to help homeowners understand and care for their lawn and garden. Does this old joke sound like you? “I am such a bad gardener. I once planted a rock garden, but they all died.” Despite many people claiming to have a black thumb, gardening is often said to be the number one hobby in America. We often fear failure and, because there are so many variables including weather, insects and other unknown problems, we may fear gardening.
I wrote this book on horticulture, gardening and landscaping for the owner of a landscape (who knows very little about plants but needs to take care of their landscape) to get over their fear of gardening. The book is over 400 pages long and has 975 photographs and illustrations.
But why would a beginning gardener want to read 400 pages? In this age of quick fixes and watching videos, many people only want to know how to fix their immediate problem. That is why I created over 200 videos on all of the topics in this book. Find out more about the book and videos at www.greenerview.com.
The first three chapters of the book cover how plants are named and grouped; how plants grow in different weather, climate, soil and water conditions; and how plant processes turn sunlight, chemicals in the air and water into a vast array of their own chemicals. In this section, you will learn principles like the “Root to Shoot Balance,” the “Plant to Environment Balance,” “Dead Stuff Decays,” and the “Thrive to Sudden Death Ranges” of plant health.
After learning how plants grow and react to changes in their environment, it is time to move to chapters that cover how to buy, plant and grow annuals, bulbs, perennials, houseplants, fruits, vegetables, lawns, shrubs and trees.
Now that you have plants growing in the landscape or house, the next chapters cover maintenance, pest control and pruning.
A beautiful landscape is more than just plants. It includes birds, butterflies, and the sounds of water splashing. The final chapters cover landscape design, water gardens and gardening for wildlife.
I want your plants to thrive. This book and the videos are intended to cut back on your gardening failures and speed up your successes. By reading or watching them all in order you will be better able to understand the horticultural problems in your landscape and how to fix them.
Growing a garden is not just about growing plants; it is also about growing as a gardener. Plants die. That is a fact that we can’t get away from. How we handle disappointment is part of the growing-as-a-gardener process. Reading this book won’t prevent you from killing plants, but it will help you kill fewer plants because you will know a lot more about plants and how to grow them.
Many gardeners are self-taught. A potential problem with this learning method is that the inexperienced teacher is going to teach themselves to do it. Many self-taught gardeners become very successful, but it can be a slow process in which many plants fail to survive during the learning process.
If you want to learn more about plants and landscaping so that you are not always searching for quick fixes to problems, go to the greenerview.com website to find out more about the book and videos.
The book is currently available as a PDF book. The softcover version is coming soon and will be available for pre-orders. For a limited time, get either book for half-price by entering the code ‘newspaper’ at checkout.
