Why Jess's Garden


As I think about it now, I chose the name because I garden to create a space that I want to share with my family.
This blog has now evovled to be a discussion about how I'm attempting to create a personal and physical home for my family.
Creating a garden is a key part of that process, but it is not the only part, so I feel the different parts of this blog are all congruent to the same goal.

Friday 26 January 2007

New books

Yesterday I had several appointments and with an hour and a bit between them, somehow I ended up in a secondhand bookshop. I can't imagine how that happened, but luck was with me and I found a couple of very interesting books.

The first was "The country diary of an Edwardian Lady" by Edith Holden. The cover looked really interesting and when I started flicking though it, I realised it really was a diary from 1906. Very quickly I realised how close this was to being a 1906 version of a blog and I just had to buy it.

The first discovery got me excited and I kept digging :lol: and suddenly I found a bible that I had never expected to find. "Esther deans' gardening book: growing without digging"
Ether Dean created the idea of no-dig gardening which I have been using to create my gardens in the baths. The book is amazing and I now have a much better understanding of how to make the gardeners and the science and process behind the steps. For more information on Esther Dean and no-dig gardening try Gardening Australia which is how I originally learned about it.

I was very excited and kept looking. I found two small paperbacks about gardening with Australian Natives. Grow Native: Creating an Australian Bush Garden by Bill Molyneux and The Native Plant expert by John Mason. Grow Native, in particular looked interesting as a book to help me plan and develop the native local garden at the back of my yard. The funny thing was when I visited my mum to show her my purchases I was telling her about the books and my description was "I got a fairly heavy text book type on native plants and gardens." at which point she interrupted with "Bill Molneux, I've got that book." But I guess I needed to buy my own copy, as I flipped through it again I realised it was signed by the author which is pretty cool.
So that I was impulse buys for yesterday, but I have spent a lot of time since scanning, flipping and reading them all.
To all the Australians out there, I hope you have had a good Australia Day.

4 comments:

melissa said...

well done on the book finding..the info in the native book will be helpful but make sure its kind of up to date ..you will find a lot of plants have been re-classified or moved around in the genus ...but the basic"gardening " info should be very sound..
can never have too many gardening books .(.btw -wigley and fagg are the native "gurus")
i got a new pair of boys footy boots and red .white socks toady ..but the book picking was very SLIM !!

Bells said...

oh no dig gardening is my ambition. Next spring, I plan to start it in my garden. I have a copy of Esther Dean's book and have seen the results in friends' gardens. You'll love it!

Sally said...

Bells,
IF you get a chance get Indolent Kitchen Gardening by Libby Smith.
It is all about growing fruit and vegetables in Canberra using the no-dig method. Very inspiring.

Sweetpea
Thank you for the warning about the native plants. OFf to look up the native "gurus"

Melissa Jane said...

I have one of Esther Deans books (might be the same one?). What do you think of her divination theories, which she uses to select 'good' seeds, plants, soil etc? No scientific explanation for it, but remarkably accurate in her case!