"Growing Roses Organically"
Not many gardeners can resist the beauty of a rose-- a flower so divine and graceful in appearance and, in many cases, so wonderfully fragrant that it evokes thoughts of love and romance at first encounter. Many gardeners, however, also see a fussy plant that's hard to grow and needs special attention, as well as a host of chemicals to keep diseases and pests at bay.
In" Growing Roses Organically," Barbara Wilde challenges the myth that growing roses has to be a time-consuming task that you can't do effectively without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In fact, she takes the intimidation out of growing roses by sharing her well-rounded, holistic approach for success. Wilde starts with tips for choosing healthy varieties, including hints for buying the best bareroot and container plants. She guides you through careful soil preparation and proper planting techniques and offers advice on how to gently intervene when it comes to pest and disease problems. Wilde also demystifies pruning-- a task that perplexes many gardeners. Her step-by-step explanation of various techniques makes this task doable for every gardener, including beginners.
You'll also find invaluable information in A Gallery of Roses, an eye-catching identification guide that boasts more than 100 roses best suited for organic gardening techniques. Each entry in the gallery includes a detailed description of the rose and its best uses, as well as ratings for fragrance, disease susceptibility, and shade tolerance.
To round out "Growing Roses Organically," you'll discover how to incorporate roses into your garden. Wilde dismisses the notion that you need to grow roses in aformal setting and instead presents four garden designs that incorporate roses with everything from perennials and wildflowers to trees and shrubs. Her design do's and don'ts along with winning plant combinations demonstrate how naturally roses fit into the landscape.
In sharing her wisdom and experience, Barbara Wilde shows that growing roses doesn't have to be labor-intensive or frustrating. By choosing the right varieties and providing proper care, roses really can be a welcome part of every garden-- including yours.
n0 About the Author
Barbara Wilde has been gardening organically since the age of 17, when her Swiss grandmother first introduced her to gardening. As owner of a midwestern specialty plant nursery, Barbara spent 10 years exploring garden design and ornamental horticulture and growing heirloom and European fruits, vegetables, and cut flowers organically. As a garden designer and education specialist for a premier midwestern landscape firm, she developed staff training curriculum and pioneered organic landscaping techniques still in use by the firm today.
Barbara has written for "Horticulture" magazine and Rodale publications and is the regular garden columnist for "Indianapolis Woman" magazine. A frequent public speaker on horticulture, she is known for her ecologically sensitive designs that use a wide variety of unusual plants.
Barbara currently lives in Paris, where she maintains her own Web site, www.frenchgardening.com. At the site, you can find articles on French gardens, practical gardening advice, favorite plants, kitchen gardening, her life in Paris, and even cooking-- her (barely) subordinate passion. When not writing content for the site, Barbara spends her time traveling throughout France searching for traditional French garden seeds and artisanal products, including tools, books, and decorating items, which she sells on her Web site. She also gardens with her companion, Denis, on their Parisian terrace and on weekends at an old Normandy farmhouse.
The instructions in this book show how anyone can produce tremendous amounts of vegetables in a small space (using containers as well as ground gardens) by following intensive, organic techniques...
The publishers weekly
Holy Cows and Hog Heaven is written by an honest-to-goodness-dirt-under-the-fingernails, optimistic clean good farmer. His goal is to: Empower food buyers to pursue positive alternatives to the industrialized...
How do the Amish get along without electric lights or appliances, computers, power tools, or their own phones? This book examines the Amish response to technology. Also, the role of...
An illustrated plant problem resource offers A-to-Z coverage of more than 180 plant types, with a field guide to more than one hundred pests and diseases, and provides the latest...
Maria Rodale, the third generation of the family that originated the organic gardening movement in the United States, has written a comprehensive and easy-to-use guide to designing and planting an...
Information and advice on all means of preventing, controlling, and eliminating plant pests and diseases are augmented by alphabetically arranged entries on specific pests and diseases
Heirloom plants are the varieties grown in our grandparents' gardens, before hybridization created standard plants with less variety. These "antique" plants are coming into vogue with many gardeners who enjoy...
Herbal Harvest is the most comprehensive book on organic herb production in print. Greg Whitten covers all facets of commercial organic herb-growing: the state of the herb industry, site selection,...
Microfarms—or small acreage farms—are gaining popularity across the country for their astoundingly high yields and great tasting produce, as well as their profitability. This handbook reveals the secrets of successful...