Perfect Cauliflower at Sherman Oaks Farmers Market
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Archive.org has a host of old gardening books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. I happened across a few in my Pinterest feed and gone completely down the rabbit hole in this treasure trove of information. Sure some ideas might be out of date, but you never know what you might find when you explore these books. I’ll be sharing more books as I find them in the coming weeks. –Douglas
Download in EPUB, Kindle, Text, PDF, Single Page JPG, TORRENT from Archive.org
PREFACE
The wide-spread interest in gardening that is steadily growing throughout the land will have prepared a large public for the reception of such stimulating encouragement as will be found in the following pages. One thinks of a great and fertile field ready ploughed and sown, and only waiting for genial warmth and moisture to make it burst forth into life and eventual abundance. The book will come as these vivifying influences. The author’s practical knowledge, keen insight, and splendid enthusiasm, her years of labor on her own land and her constant example and encouragement of others — combine to make her one of those most fitted to direct energy, to suggest and instruct — to communicate her own thought and practise to willing learners.
Many are those who love their gardens, many who know their plants, many who understand their best ways of culture. All these qualities or accomplishments are necessary, but besides and above them all is the will or determination to do the best possible — “to garden finely” — as Bacon puts it.
Such a desire is often felt, but from lack of experience it cannot be brought into effect. What is needed for the doing of the best gardening is something of an artist’s training, or at any rate the possession of such a degree of aptitude — the God-given artist’s gift — as with due training may make an artist; for gardening, in its best expression, may well rank as one of the fine arts. But without the many years of labor needed for any hope of success in architecture, sculpture, or painting, there are certain simple rules, whose observance, carried out in horticulture, will make all the difference between a garden that is utterly commonplace and one that is full of beauty and absorbing interest.
Of these one of the chief is a careful consideration of color arrangement. Early in her gardening career this fact impressed itself upon the author’s mind. A study of the book reveals the method and gives a large quantity of applied example. A few such lessons put in practise will assuredly lead on to independent effort; for the learner, diligently reading and carefully following the good guidance, will soon find the way open to a whole new field of beauty and delight.
Gertrude Jekyll.
More information on this book:
Publication date 1922
Topics Gardens
Publisher New York, Scribner
Collection americana
Digitizing sponsor NCSU Libraries
Contributor NCSU Libraries
Language English
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From a neighbor’s garden
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Old Roses in the Cal Poly Pomona Rose Garden
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Artichoke flower on Cal Poly Pomona campus
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Working in the garden over the weekend.
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From a neighbor’s garden
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A Gardener’s Notebook: The Guilty Gardener – 2 in a series
Douglas E. Welch
As I had hoped — but hadn’t really expected — writing the first piece in this new series actually got me motivated to do something in the garden.
Who would have “thunk” it?!
One point that helped to get me moving was a recent 3-day sale at our local Armstrong Garden Center. They were clearing out inventory with 30%-50% all glazed pots as well as some similar sales on various plants. I usually try to visit this shop every couple of weeks or so, just to check out what is new and what might be blooming so I can collect a few new photos for my Instagram feed.
On this trip, we found some great deals on a couple of larger ceramic pots for transplanting our patio coleus and some geraniums that Rosanne grew from neighborhood cuttings.
You’ve probably noticed that the larger of these pots has a significant chip out of the rim. Knowing that this would most likely be covered by the plant and not be seen, we were able to get this one at 50% off instead of 30%. A little frugalness never hurts, you know!
We also found some new plants on rather amazing sale, including some clivia, which normally seems waaaaay over-priced. I picked up 3 of these for the back garden and Rosanne spotted a pink-flowered abutilon that called out to her.
I am always one to install new plants as soon as we get them so they don’t languish in their pots — especially during these hot summer months — so all three of these projects were completed on Sunday. The coleus was installed in its new “permanent” glazed pot…
Coleus in its new pot
Clivia installed
…the 3 clivias were planted in the back “woodland” garden (in an effort to green up that area). I also took the time to expand the newly replaced soaker hoses in this area to include the clivia…
Overview showing location of new clivia
…and the abutilon was installed in the same bed were our recycled pumpkins are growing. My hope there is that once the pumpkins are gone it will start to fill in this area.
Abutilon “Watermelon Pink”
More projects and request for recommendations
Even after finishing these smaller projects I was still looking out over the garden at all the remaining work to be done.
One larger, and more expensive, project is the replacement of our small, plastic, greenhouse with something larger and more robust. We knew that this inexpensive greenhouse probably wouldn’t last long, having paid only ~$50 for it, but we wanted to try it to see if we would truly make use of it. Over the last 2 years, we have done just that. It has been instrumental in protecting new cuttings and plants from our digging squirrels and also kept a higher humidity environment that seems to have helped a variety of plants get started and stay healthy.
What would you recommend for our next greenhouse?
I have been looking at a variety of greenhouses and here are a few that caught my eye. I think the polycarbonate construction would hold up much better and the added size would still fit in basically the same location as the existing greenhouse. The inclusion of a better door and also a purpose-made roof vent also looked good.
What is your experience with polycarbonate greenhouses?
Pros? Cons? I’d love to hear about your experience and any advice you might have.
There is still so much to do in the garden, but I must say that I feel a bit better about actually getting things done there.
Archive.org has a host of old gardening books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. I happened across a few in my Pinterest feed and gone completely down the rabbit hole in this treasure trove of information. Sure some ideas might be out of date, but you never know what you might find when you explore these books. I’ll be sharing more books as I find them in the coming weeks. –Douglas
Historical Garden Books: The Joy Of Gardens By Lena May McCauley – 3 in a series
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FOREWORD
ANY book about gardens, written for the pleasure of writing, must have its sources in dreams. The visions of gardens beautiful and retired hover before the imagination, and no real garden, however humble, but is invested in celestial light of cherished hopes of what it may become in fragrant flowers or what it might have been had fortune been kind.
The facts and the fancies of this book were discovered in various gardens, some centuries old, fruitful of memories of those whose hands have long since turned to dust, others in the joyous public gardens with parterres, and the most precious of all in the quiet gardens of my friends.
“Gardening,” said a wise writer, “is among the purest of pleasures,” and one tossed on the fretful world knows that there is no purer delight than that which comes to the human heart with friends in gardens. To many friends, far and wide, I owe whatever inspiration lives in these pages.
The illustration of the book was an afterthought carried out in the desire to suggest the art of landscape gardening. Credit is gratefully recorded to those who aided with the pictures, and especially to Jens Jensen, Jessie T. Beals, Mary H. -Northend, J. Horace McFarland, W. H. Rau, Henry Fuhrman, E. L. Fowler, Alice Enk, and Mode Wineman.
More information on this book:
Publication date [c1911]
Topics Gardens
Publisher Chicago : Rand McNally
Collection cdl; americana
Digitizing sponsor MSN
Contributor University of California Libraries
Language English
Learn more about gardening history with these books
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A bit of transplanting in the garden yesterday.
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