Louise Midgley reviews some newly published books guaranteed to inspire gardeners this season
Urban Flowers: Creating abundance in a small city garden
By Carolyn Dunster
Photographs by Jason Ingram
Published by Frances Lincoln £20 Hardback April
Urban gardens are notoriously small and more often than not shaded out by neighbouring buildings, boundary walls and fences. To find a book crammed with fresh new ideas on how to fill your outdoor space with beautiful plants, whatever its limitations, has to be worth investigating.
Accomplished plant designer and florist, Carolyn Dunster, herself a city dweller with a small garden back and front, offers infinite ways of growing flowers in the smallest of spaces, even if it’s on a balcony, rooftop, windowsill or perhaps just a vertical wall.
While the book is divided into distinct sections that cover essential topics on how to evaluate, design and personalise your space, the one I lingered over the longest was ‘Experimenting with Colour.’
This section, filled with exquisite photos of flowers, is packed with imaginative ideas for urban gardeners. Dressing up a drainpipe, growing flowering annuals in large fruit or vegetable cans and a quirky guide that shows how to grow geraniums upside down in suspended pots are but a few of the illustrated suggestions that will brighten up your plot.
Carolyn’s infectious enthusiasm for nurturing and growing plants is constantly woven through the pages of this book and can’t fail to inspire city dwellers to buy seeds and plants to decorate their gardens with colour, form and scent. It’s a reference guide to dip in and out of for years to come, that should help all urban gardeners realise the horticultural potential of their outside space.
Pollinator Friendly Gardening: Gardening for Bees, Butterflies and Other Pollinators
By Rhonda Fleming Hayes
Published by Voyageur Press £12.99 Paperback
Pollinators have been having a hard time over the past few years. Loss of habitat, widespread use of pesticides and various diseases have collectively led to the demise of some species.
They play a vital role by pollinating a large proportion of foods we eat and also contribute to an essential part of the natural food chain by pollinating wildflowers, trees and ornamental plants that produce seeds, berries and fruit to sustain small mammals and birds.
Rhonda Fleming Hayes tackles the problem head on in her ‘Pollinator Friendly Gardening’ book and urges all gardeners to join forces and learn how to make a difference by gardening specifically with bees, butterflies and pollinators in mind.
In addition to a comprehensive list of nectar and pollen rich plants aimed at luring in a mix of pollinating species, Rhonda also gives a fascinating insight into the needs of some individual insects, such as bees and caterpillars.
While Rhonda lives in America and refers to species such as humming birds that are native to her home, she has also spent time gardening in England and information provided in this book is relevant to gardeners no matter where they live.
The book concentrates on the three basic principles of how to support pollinators in our own gardens: which plants will provide food throughout the season, how to provide nesting and overwintering sites and why pesticides should never be used.
In the introduction, Rhonda Fleming Hayes writes “Welcoming pollinators will fill your life with colour, sound, movement and most of all joy.” Reason enough for us all to take some action and provide the right habitat for these fascinating little creatures.
New Wild Garden: Natural-style planting and practicalities
By Ian Hodgson
Photographs by Neil Hepworth
Published by Frances Lincoln £25 Hardback
This newly-released book by Ian Hodgson, captures the very essence of current trends in the way we garden and reflects a collective conscience by modern gardeners, determined to work with nature rather than against it.
The realisation that meticulously tidy beds and borders offer little refuge for wildlife has resulted in a surge of alternative more relaxed and informal planting styles that actively support wildlife and the environment.
But while professional garden designers create naturalistic planting schemes and billowing wildflower meadows with great ease, the average gardener, with little horticultural expertise, often struggles to replicate these designs.
The author, a former editor of The Garden Magazine (published by The Royal Horticultural Society) and a qualified landscape architect, shares his vast knowledge on how to create your own personalised wild-style planting area, that not only looks beautiful but also offers a sanctuary for birds, insects, amphibians and butterflies.
No matter what space you have to use, Hodgson offers a wealth of ideas from planting up confined areas to more ambitious projects that transform large gardens, all beautifully illustrated over eight informative chapters.
