A Touch of the Oscar's

That's a phrase I sometimes use to denote a complete cave-in on the resolution front.

"I can resist anything, except temptation."

You may, if you have very, very good memories recall this post.

I lasted six whole months after that, until I buckled and bought the book.

What a snip!

I'm a sucker for a secondhand gardening book, preferably at least as old as me.

No glossy images for me - give me a line drawing any day of week. Add in a vaguely chucklesome author name and some old-school horticultural advice and I'm happy as a sandboy. No surprise, then, that Pruning in the Fruit Garden by F Hilkenbaumer caught my attention in the £1 rack outside my favourite bookshop.

Fruit tree pruning's one of those skills that, try as I might, I can't get the hang of from a written guide. This is where Mr Hilkenbaumer's book comes in. There's very little in the way of words, because it's the line drawings that communicate the art and science of the job of pruning. The lines of the tree's branches are rendered in black, with red lines showing what should be cut back: it couldn't be clearer.

The book was published in 1976, but as the back cover says, "fashions in pruning come and go, but the basic techniques remain the same". The only mystery is a pruning timetable on the last page that's got me completely puzzled, but no matter, the rest of it is pure gold. Thankyou, Mr Hilkenbaumer.

With any luck, my plum and pear tree will thank you, too.

Jane Perrone

Horticultural - The organic gardening blog

Thanks for the Guest Blog Jane - GMx

What Have I Done?

I can usually justify a purchase - somehow.

But these I cannot.

They are RHS Council Reports and serve no useful purpose.

I bought them all the same.

What bothers me most is that I only have to come across another one to be able to invoke the Siadwell Principle, and then I shall have to collect the whole blessed lot.
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Tempted

I continue to be seduced into buying books just because of their cover.

This one dates from 1961, and cost a matter of pence.

I love the cover design so much I am thinking of cutting it up and framing it.

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That is no doubt an act of sacrilegious vandalism, but it was very cheap and if I did destroy it then it makes the remaining ones more valuable I guess - so it’s not an entirely wanton act.

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The Siadwell Principle

The title of this post does admittedly sound a bit like one of those brick-like books by Robert Ludlum, or someone, that you see all manner of sad bastards clasping under their arms at airports.

Anyway - it isn’t.

The Siadwell Principle is something altogether more profound.

It is an age-old concept, but one most recently demonstrated by Siadwell, a gormless Welsh geek created by John Sparkes, in an eighties comedy series I only dimly remember.

The sketch in question opened with Siadwell admiring his “Collection” - which was two pens and a comb. The joke was that he had just three things, only two of which were the same, but laugh not - this is a Damascene moment.

It not only establishes the principle that you need only three things to have a collection [two is merely a pair], but also if you have only two things that are the same, you can still create a collection if you can find something made of the same material and approximately the same length.

This is a vital dictum to the budding collector.

Imagine my joy when I bought this ready made collection yesterday. Not only that, the second-hand bookshop had a half price sale on and they cost me just £4.50 for the lot.

I will of course post about these books in due course, but right now I need a lie down - I am as excited as a paparazzo who has just photographed Amy Winehouse, using a pooter to blow Class A drugs up her mimsy.

Tie me up, tie me down

On the subject of a previous post - it seems that James the Hat was nearly "Trussed".

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A sign of madness

It seems to me a sign of obsession with a subject, when you have items relating to it, which are of no possible use to you.

I have a number of garden/gardening/horticulture books, which I am sure I will not derive the slightest practical use from.

That is not to say that they are without any use - they give pleasure.

This is, I think, the book I own which is the least useful, but I love it.

It is by E St Clair Morford and is the 1946 reprint of the 1926 original.

It bears the following heartrending inclusion in the revised foreword:

“Since 1926, when this book first appeared, much has happened. The writer returned in1945 to a garden completely destroyed; borders turned into sweet potato beds, lawns a waving sea of lalang and “forestry”. Fern and plant houses pulled down; shrubs and trees cut down by vandals, who cut the trees to get the fruit!…standard hibiscus and orchids - the collection of 30 years - thrown on the rubbish heap!…”C’est la guerre”!...

Cover Lover Redux.

Isn't this a great cover?

I love looking at it.

It is however a bittersweet experience, as it’s a single volume of Commercial Gardening, edited by John Weathers , ( A Practical and Scientific Treatise For Market Gardeners Market Grower fruit Flower and Vegetable Growers Nurserymen etc.) and there are three more, which I don't have.

The fact that it's volume two, rather than volume one, or volume four, the latter of which presumably contains the index, somehow makes this worse.

Sigh.

Cover lover

Of course, these days it is de rigueur for books to attempt to seduce us with an attractive cover, but I must confess to buying this old book largely because of it's cover illustration.

Although the purchase was also, in part, because of the subject of “Art Out of Doors” (it's about garden design and is subtitled Hints on Good Taste in Gardening) and, in slightly larger part, because it was written by one Mrs Schuyler Van Renesselaer. What a great name.

It's an American book and mine is the 1925 reprint rather than the 1893 original.

It did however once belong to a lady called Barbara de Quincy., which I find strangely marvellous.