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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Pre-Spring Clean

I have been tidying my books. I would say organising, but in truth they were no more organised when I finished than when I started.

In the process I did discover that I have a pair of books from the Studies in Biology series.

As Flange members will know this is according to the Siadwell Principle dangerously close to the beginning of a collection.

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Anything except temptation

I love Timber Press books. If you have any sort of garden book collection you surely have at least one of their titles.

I don’t look at their website very often. Not for any other reason than that of temptation. It’s a bit like offering the late Ollie Reed the keys to a branch of Threshers off-licence.

Of course they have oodles of info about all their books, but they also have a daily horticultural question competition that enters you for their monthly book draw.

I do find the questions are generally very interesting, stroke, challenging in their own right, even if you don‘t enter.

I have entered this a number of times, because I do not have enough books, but have yet to win.
Which is probably God’s way of telling me I have plenty of books.

Book Clubbed

I should have mentioned this a while ago when I discovered it.

But if you pop over here, there is a Garden Book Club.

Undoubtedly of interest to all garden book lovers, but possibly more so to the Stateside bloggers as it would be easier for them to take part.

It seems to have gone to sleep, but will I guess spark back into life now winter is almost upon us.

If I had anything about me I would have started a UK oriented Garden Book Club.

That said, my experience of book clubs is that they involve a vociferous argument over what books to chose, a prolonged period of silence, followed by a round of mild-bulling dirceted at those members who have signed up and not actually read the book yet.

Or in some instances even remembered what it was, much less bought it.

I bet they do these things properly in the States.
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Free book!!

Win a free book!!

Oh Yes!!


Go here to find out how.

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Humby, like the Wolfe

As I mentioned yesterday over on my eponymous blog, I have just acquired a copy of Kensington Gardens by Humbert Wolfe.

I bought it largely because it had a poem in it about the Hawthorn, my favourite tree, but it does also have quite a number of others about trees and flowers and also this which I like a lot:

Lupin.

Said the old deaf gardener
"I'm wore out with stoopin'
over them impident
sword-blue lupin

Look at 'em standing,
as cool as kings,
and me sopped to the middle
with bedding the things."
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Mmmmmm!

Mmmmmm!

(in the manner of a M & S advert)

This isn’t just a Penguin handbook

This is a King Penguin book,

This is Flowers of Marsh and Streams

by Iolo A. Williams, with drawings by Noel Rooke.

And it‘s completely marvellous.

Oooh!

Hybrid Vigour.

We use hybrids in the garden without even thinking about them. The successful ones of course, have the best characteristics from both parents and give us a much better plant. Those which don’t tend not to make it past the plant breeders’ selection process and the few that do, usually don’t become best sellers, so naturally fade away with time.

That made me muse a little about hybrid gardening books.

I joined a craft bookclub a while ago and bought Jan Messent’s Knitted Gardens book out of curiosity. It’s most eccentric, offering lots of ways of representing flowers, vegetables and garden structures in a knitted form. For a while I thought that was the only hybrid in my collection. But the addition of Kaffe Fassett’s Country Garden Quilts last Thursday made me look at my garden books with fresh eyes.

I have at least two other hybrids: gardens and cooking are an obvious pairing and I have both Christopher Lloyd’s Gardener Cook (a necessary purchase after reading Dear Friend and Gardener as he a Beth Chatto were always citing recipes which made me extremely hungry) and Monty/Sarah Don’s Fork to Fork.

My other hybrid is Painting Flowers & Gardens in Watercolour and Pastel by Alison Hoblyn, a necessary purchase via Amazon second-hand as I’m struggling with the sketchbook aspects of my gardening course. Having discovered I have several hybrids in my collection, I’m surprised I don’t have more – gardening and photography is an obvious one which springs to mind, but I don’t have a single example, unless you count all the gardening books I have using sumptuous photography as illustration.

Do you have any hybrids in your garden book collection? What’s the most unusual hybrid you’ve seen irrespective of whether or not it’s in your garden book collection? Which ones have the best characteristics of their parents and therefore flourish, and which ones should be left to fade away?

VP

Sheer Deer!

I have quite a few books which relate to single items, like a particular genus.

But I think this takes the biscuit for the most specific subject.

Showtime

Another of my recent purchases was one of the Penguin Handbook series.
As is the way with collecting anything, one starts to gets one’s eye in, with prices, what‘s common, etc.
It seems to me that this is one of the rarer gardening titles among the PH’s, and for my money it has, so far, the best cover.

It is PH 42 - Flower Growing For Shows - E R Janes [1959]

Blue Prints

I was of course being saucy with my previous mention of blue gardening books.

It would be interesting to discover that there is such thing as horticulturally themed erotic fiction, but in the meantime here then, for Zoe, is the bluest garden book I own.

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Dearly Beloved

These are just a few of the books I've acquired in the last couple of months.

I must confess to have been a little put off posting some things here by Helen's comment that there were rather a lot of old books featured. She was entirely right. It would be too easy for this blog to be just a load of photos of old book covers, which would actually be fine, but I'd like it to be a mix of old and new.

Continuing the nuptial theme, there is perhaps also scope for something on borrowed books, though I can't imagine there are many garden books that are blue in content.

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Blog Book News

There are a small number of blogs that can be relied upon to have garden book-based posts on a regular basis.

Amongst them are two American ones which, between them, cover two ends of the spectrum. Garden History Girl has items from, as you would expect, the classic history of garden books, whilst my friend Amanda at Kiss My Aster covers more recent, but to me, just as interesting publications. In fact recently she has been having a small flurry of posts about loads of them.

Another blogger of regular acquaintance, Mrs Be features Elspeth Thompson's new book on both her blogs.

And on a less familiar note, I recently came across a blog called The Bookish Gardener. Curiously it has little content relating to garden books, except on Henry Mitchell, where there is rather a lot (in itself no bad thing).

But the most exciting news is surely on Emma Cooper's blog where you will find the opportunity to actually take part in writing a book.
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VP's writing SP

Now the nights are drawing in, it’s time to snuggle in front of the fire, have a warm drink or nice tot of something to hand and to really start getting to grips with the vast (in my case) pile of books that’s been growing over the past few months.

However, from reading the blogosphere, it's become clear to me November's NOT the month for such activities. Writing’s the thing! Emmat’s furiously scribbling away to fulfil her 1,600+ words a day target for the National Novel Writing Month.

If this makes you feel exhausted just thinking about it, then like me you can have a go at National Blog Posting Month – the theme for November is: there is no theme, so you can get away with writing about anything, just do it daily. If that’s too much, then you can have a go at Your Messages, just like our simian friend here.

Or, you could just go back to your fire and get reading. Yet the blogosphere has designs for you in this area too. Where there’s gardening, I believe thoughts of food are never too far away and Joanna on her food blog has winkled out the fun Food Quote Challenge, where there's a copy of The Food Lovers' Treasury up for grabs. All you have to do is recall the finest piece of fictional writing about food you know of and tell the Almond and the Hazelnut blog about it by the 21st November. You'll find full details of what you have to do via the link. However, Joanna's already come up with some rather yummy stiff competition.

Alternatively, how about telling the Flange about your favourite fictional garden in the Comments below? Go to it book fans!

VP

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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Book Review - Gardeners’ World Top Tips – A Treasury of Garden Wisdom

Victoria contacted me earlier this week – would I like to have her review copy of the latest Gardeners’ World book published last week? She suggested it would be a suitable prize for my Open Garden fundraiser, so how could I refuse such an offer? I also rather liked the idea of reviewing the book for Flange readers seeing The Garden Monkey’s rather busy at the moment.

First impressions are favourable. It’s hardback with a rather jolly dustjacket harking back to simpler times in the garden. Even the snail on the cover looks friendly. It’s written by Louise Hampden – Gardeners’ World’s producer and announces itself as ‘Hints, tips and wisdom from TV’s longest running and most popular gardening programme…’ I met Louise very briefly at Gardeners’ World Live in June when we exchanged pleasantries during the filming of Gardeners’ World. She’s worked on the programme for the past 10 years, so knows the programme and the last few crops of presenters inside out. According to the press release that came with the book, it’s a tie-in with a 20 part daytime TV series due to start on 1st December. However, there’s no mention of this fact in the book itself.

It’s divided into 5 chapters – Flower Power, Food, Design, Pots and Gardens. Flower Power is further divided by season and looks at how to ensure year-round floral interest in the garden. Several of the book’s shortcomings quickly become apparent: a lot of the content whilst interesting, isn’t really tips at all – there’s potted histories, quotations from famous gardeners (not necessarily Gardeners’ World presenters) and plant trivia. The ‘Top Tips’ themselves (helpfully boxed, with a different font and background, so you can’t miss them) are often pitched at the pre-beginner level. I suspect most of the gardeners whom I believe this book is aimed at will feel a bit short changed. For a book that’s meant to be culled from 40 years of Gardeners’ World wisdom, it’s strange there’s not more tips to share, nor is there much in the way of anecdotes or content attribution to the presenters. I often found the best ‘Top Tips’ were in the non-boxed sections, for example there’s an organic slug repellent recipe I’d love to try using garlic. And that’s when I met another of the book’s shortcomings – there isn’t an index to find the useful bits at a later date. So if I want to return to the book in the spring to cook up my garlic slug repellent, I’ll have to remember the recipe’s in the Flower Power chapter, in the Summer section and somewhere in the part called Dealing with Slugs and Snails. Hmm.

The chapters on Food, Design and Pots are in a similar vein. I thought the Design chapter was the strongest and most coherent in its content and advice – probably because it’s documenting a journey from start to finish with some clearly signposted ‘things to think about’ along the way. In contrast, the Gardens section was woefully inadequate at just 4 pages. This is the chapter meant to reflect the hundreds of gardens and nurseries Gardeners’ World has visited and should give readers some must-see places to explore later. However, there’s no mention of Kew, nor the National Trust or English Nature. You could argue these are obvious, but if that’s so, then why mention the RHS gardens or the Yellow Book? The NCCPG is mentioned fleetingly, but no contact details are given if anyone wants to find out where to visit a garden with a specific plant collection. There’s two pages of suggested gardens to visit and I liked the way this is divided into places reflecting the other chapters of the book. However at two pages in length and with 10 sub-headings it means many readers won’t have anywhere to go nearby if they want to visit one with for example, Winter interest. Simply doubling the length of this chapter, with a better researched set of websites and contact details would have made it a much more useful resource.

You may think I don’t rate this book from what I’ve said so far. However, much of it is utterly charming. The plentiful line drawings are lovely and much of the information is interesting. I did have quite a few ‘Oh I didn’t know that’ moments which kept me turning the pages. It would have been so much better if the book had tried to be good at one thing instead of two. As a reference book it fails, but as a miscellany to dip into at bedtime, it works.

VP

Guess what I've been up to?

I really should get out more.

I find the fact that it's so difficult with gardening books stangely compelling.

BTW - missed this one from yesterday's round-up as it went up just after I'd posted.
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Blog Book News

Another quick round-up of garden book goings-on, many of which I‘m sure you will have seen.

Highlight for me was Kate‘s eloquent review of James Alexander-Sinclair‘s. book.

Also fellow flange members Helen and VP have a go at the Sorted Books thing.

I think I mentioned the free E-Books here before, but they weren’t actually available at the
time.

And if you are in the market for freebies, pop over here.
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Book Review - The Thrifty Gardener – Alys Fowler

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. My expectations were of a book full of sensible, down to earth advice and ideas and I wasn’t, in the end, disappointed.

The book is divided into 9 chapters which lead the novice gardeners from ‘No garden gardening’ to pruning and propagating and includes a directory of easy veg and flowers to grow. However, unlike other gardening books I have encountered this one had a very urban and modern feel and certainly engaged with society’s current preoccupation with recycling and sustainability as shown in the section on ‘skip diving’ which rather surprised provincial me!! At first I though I wasn’t going to be able to engage with the book, being naturally drawn to those coffee table books with lots of sumptuous English country garden. I thought, as it was aimed at beginners, it couldn’t teach me anything new – how presumptuous of me!

Alys’ wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm shines through on every page as does her non-nonsense personality which is humorously demonstrated in the section about DIY tools ( I told you it wasn’t your normal gardening book!). Alys says that you need to find someone to teach you how to use tools and in her experience this shouldn’t be someone who "complain(s) about your driving skills" but rather "someone you are never going to go to bed with" – such sensible advice!

Whilst the book contains a number of DIY projects such as building your own compost bin and wormery, it also contains a lot of sensible gardening advice – some of which goes against everything else you will have read, such as her opinion that shop bought soil testing kits are a complete waste of time and money, the alternative either send a soil sample to a lab or use a home grown test kit complete with red cabbage leaf! I found Alys’ honest approach very refreshing and humorous.

Having encouraged the novice gardener to move from container gardening (which includes tips on growing Avocado and Papaya plants) into garden gardening the books then gives some tips on preparing soil, sowing and propagating and concludes with coping with gluts and how to make herb teas. This last section came as a surprise and this was one element of the book which I found frustrating. It touched on many subjects but not in great detail and you were left turning the page and finding yourself going in a totally different direction. I think there is a huge potential for Alys to develop some of the smaller sections in the book into a range of excellent companion books.

Although this book claims to be aimed at beginners, and it certainly doesn’t assume any pre-knowledge, taking trouble to explain various terminology, I do think that most gardeners would find it a welcome edition to their literature collection. If nothing else it makes you re-look at things you have taken for granted and introduces you to new points of view which can never be a bad thing.

Having started thinking I could learn nothing new from the book I am now itchy for spring to arrive so I can have a go at growing my own chickpea plant and I don’t even like chickpeas.

Helen

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Blog Book News

I apologise once again for the lack of bloggage on these pages. As things go to sleep outside I will try and make Flange entries a bit more regular.

So by way of recompense - a bit of a round up of a few garden booky items.

The idea behind the picture comes from the Sorted Book Project, which I discovered via Musings from a Muddy Island, a site that VP tipped me off about.

It’s not easy to do the “sorted book” thing with garden books, for the simple reason that they pretty much all seem to have garden or gardening in the title.

Musings from a MI is completely booky, but as far as I can ascertain has only one garden book on it. Nevertheless it looks like a delicious book and it is a fine blog.

Next, the prodigal blogger returns and EmmaT champions Charles Dowding’s Salad Leaves, on her day-blog.

Then a serious recommendation from Mrs Be on a subject she knows all about.

A nice book pic crops up on Pictures Just Pictures.

Garden Bookcases get a feature from The Garden History Girl.

Finally, I came across this old review of Hortus and Slightly Foxed.

Now I had never come across the latter, but it does look like it might have some interest to the horticulturally minded. Does anyone know it?