Product Description

An update of "Be Your own Gardening Expert", this is a basic manual covering all aspects of gardening, from pools to petunias.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24659 in Books
• Published on: 1986-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

About the Author
Dr. D.G. Hessayon
Dr D.G. Hessayon's Expert books have made him the world's best-selling author on gardening. Born in Manchester, he was variously a horticulturist research scientist, university lecturer, artist and newspaper editor before launching the Expert series in 1959. In 1999 Dr Hessayon was awarded a Guinness World Record Certificate for being Britain's best-selling living author of the 1990s. He lives in Essex, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Excerpted from The Garden Expert by D.G. Hessayon. Copyright © 1986. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Your garden may cover many acres, with a stately home at its centre. Or it may be no larger than one of the small rooms in that grand house. In either case it is your garden – to change, care for and use as a refuge from a world filled with stress.

You will never learn everything there is to know about gardening, but you can become an expert gardener. This book attempts to set out the fundamental principles – becoming an expert calls for combining the knowledge gained from books with a great deal of careful observation and practical experience.

For most people the aim is to create a good example of the typical British garden – the lawn, Roses and flower beds which make up such a distinctive feature of our urban scenery. Beloved by foreigners, but not part of our ancient heritage.

Much has been written about gardening on the grand scale. Britain, often thought of as the country which gave gardening to the world, went to the continent to learn what to do. So our early gardens stretching around 17th century mansions were copies of the highly formal European style. In the 18th century we stopped copying. We invented the Landscape Garden – rolling parkland, artificial lakes, trees on top of man-made hills. William Kent, Capability Brown and the other architects of this naturalism made England the most respected gardening nation on earth.

It was all on the grand scale. Around ordinary homes these changes meant nothing – the Cottage Garden remained an untidy but useful jumble of vegetables, herbs and sweet smelling flowers. Then came the Industrial Revolution. Whilst the cottage and its garden slept on, there appeared a new phenomenon – the villa of the middle classes and the terrace house of the millworker. The villa owners turned to Mr & Mrs Loudon for guidance, and it was these two tireless journalists who popularised the Victorian Villa Garden – lawns, geometric flower beds, shrubberies, annual bedding and so on. Later designers such as Gertrude Jekyll softened the line a little with herbaceous borders. From these Victorians the home garden of today has arisen, and it continues to develop. Nowadays, we happily mix Roses, shrubs, perennials and bulbs in the same bed in a way which would have horrified the rule-book writers of 50 years ago. Perhaps the only rule is to remember the words of Gertrude Jekyll – ‘A garden is for its owner’s pleasure’.

Customer Reviews

How to become a gardener without spending a fortune!
As usual, Dr Hessayon goes straight to the heart of the matter. This excellent little book tells you everything you need to know to become a gardener. In only 128 pages the author tells you all the essentials, from what a garden is through to pest control. He stops on the way to tell you how to test and improve your soil, how to identify plants that will thrive in it, how to categorise the plants and what those categories mean (climbers, perennials, annuals, biennials, rockery plants, bulbs, roses, trees, fruit, vegetables), which tools and equipment you need and how to look after them, gardening techniques such as watering and pinching out, how to cope with weeds, pests and diseases, greenhouse gardening, water gardening, and garden design, ending with a section on non-living features such as patios and fences. There is a contents list and the book is heavily illustrated in colour. It is exceptionally reader-friendly and is designed to enable the reader to go straight to the relevant section without having to plough through pages of text first. Don't spend a fortune on other books if you're a beginner - just get this one!

The Garden Expert
This book covers the basics of gardening and does not give any in-depth information. Although it was useful I then had to go out and buy other books about gardening to get specific information. To be fair it is such a big subject that it would be difficult to cover everything you need to know in one small book. Having said that, I found it quite irritating that everytime I tried to get information on a subject e.g. trees, I was given very basic information and then told to buy his book that was specific for that subject.

Book review
A great book from a great series. Has all of the information you need on looking after your garden.