Home & Garden

William Cobbett's 1819 work was designed to provide the information necessary to improve the understanding of the art and practice of gardening in America.

"An outstanding and enjoyable introduction to botany, whether the reader is a gardener, or just a garden visitor." --Bloomsbury Review

What happens inside a seed after it is planted? How are plants structured? How do plants reproduce? The answers to these and other questions about complex plant processes can be found in the bestselling Botany for Gardeners. Written in accessible language, this must-have guide allows gardeners and horticulturists to understand plants from the plant's point of view. Now in its third edition, Botany for Gardeners has now been expanded and updated, and includes an appendix on plant taxonomy, a comprehensive index, and dozens of new photos and illustrations.

In celebration of his 300th year, a definitive survey of Capability Brown's most famous gardens and landscapes in Britain. Widely acknowledged as the most influential landscape designer of his age, Lancelot Capability Brown was to England what Frederick Law Olmsted was to America--responsible for shaping the very ideal of the nation's parkland. Brown's ambition was to bring out of a landscape the best of its potential rather than impose his own ideas upon it. His designs are organic, weaving gestures of color and perspective into the features that the country already afforded. So natural are his designs, and so perfectly do they complement the houses within them, that for many a Capability Brown landscape is the epitome of the English estate. His gardens and parklands--as much as the houses themselves--would become icons of British country life. Published to coincide with the tercentenary of his birth, this remarkable book illuminates fifteen of Brown's most celebrated landscapes. To love the great English estates is to love the settings with which Brown surrounded them--from idyllic parklands at Milton and Broadlands to structured landscapes around iconic houses at Blenheim, Burghley, Wakefield, and Chatsworth. With photography commissioned for the book, and including rarely seen archival drawings that shed light on Brown's process, this book serves as a guide to Britain's most beloved landscapes and an exploration of the masterful mind behind their creation.

For people who don't have space or time for traditional gardening and who need expert advice on choosing and using plants and containers to create their own container garden, large or small. At long last, a smart and sensible gardening guide from the most trusted name in gardening.

Compiled from the pages of Fine Gardening magazine, Container Gardening will inspire readers with:

dramatic plant combinations

step-by-step techniques to plant and care for containers under all conditions, including regions with short growing periods.

The experts at Fine Gardening will show even a beginning gardener how containers can create boundaries, direct traffic, break up wall space, and soften edges throughout the year.

"This book will help you keep your plants healthy."--Minneapolis Star Tribune, 7 Books to Shake Up Your Home Decor

Houseplants are more popular than ever before--especially with millennials, who are setting up their homes for the first time and discovering that nothing can add energy, style, and that essential "lived-in-ness" to their spaces better than a little bit of green. Whether it's a statement-making fiddle-leaf fig or a tiny tabletop succulent, a houseplant instantly elevates the look of your home. But where to begin?

In Decorating with Plants, Baylor Chapman walks readers through everything they need to know to bring houseplants into their home. First, there's Plant Care 101: from how to assess light conditions to tricks for keeping your plants alive while on vacation, Chapman gives readers the simple, foundational info they need to ensure their plants will thrive. Then she introduces us to 28 of her favorites--specimens that are tough as nails but oh-so-stylish, from the eye-catching Rubber Tree to the delicate Cape Primrose. Finally, she guides readers through the home room by room: Place an aromatic plant like jasmine or gardenia to your entry to establish your home's "signature scent." Add a proper sense of scale to your living room with a ceiling-grazing palm. Create a living centerpiece of jewel-toned succulents for a dining table arrangement that will last long after your dinner party. From air purification to pest control, there's no limit to what houseplants can do for your home--and Decorating with Plants is here to show you how to add them to spaces big and small with style.

"An informative and celebratory resource." --Booklist

In this beautiful and empowering book, Jennifer Jewell--host of public radio's award-winning program and podcast Cultivating Place--introduces 75 inspiring women. Working in wide-reaching fields that include botany, floral design, landscape architecture, farming, herbalism, and food justice, these influencers are creating change from the ground up. Profiled women include flower farmer Erin Benzakein; codirector of Soul Fire Farm Leah Penniman; plantswoman Flora Grubb; edible and cultural landscape designer Leslie Bennett; Caribbean-American writer and gardener Jamaica Kincaid; soil scientist Elaine Ingham; landscape designer Ariella Chezar; floral designer Amy Merrick, and many more. Rich with personal stories and insights, Jewell's portraits reveal a devotion that transcends age, locale, and background, reminding us of the profound role of green growing things in our world--and our lives.

"A visual treat as well as a literary one, Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life will be deeply satisfying for gardeners and garden lovers, connoisseurs of botanical illustration, and those who seek a deeper understanding of the life and work of Emily Dickinson." --The Wall Street Journal

Emily Dickinson was a keen observer of the natural world, but less well known is the fact that she was also an avid gardener--sending fresh bouquets to friends, including pressed flowers in her letters, and studying botany at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke. At her family home, she tended both a small glass conservatory and a flower garden.

In Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life, award-winning author Marta McDowell explores Dickinson's deep passion for plants and how it inspired and informed her writing. Tracing a year in the garden, the book reveals details few know about Dickinson and adds to our collective understanding of who she was as a person. By weaving together Dickinson's poems, excerpts from letters, contemporary and historical photography, and botanical art, McDowell offers an enchanting new perspective on one of America's most celebrated but enigmatic literary figures.

The ultimate color-by-color flower reference guide - from New York's pre-eminent floral designers, Putnam and Putnam

Planning a wedding, a dinner, a birthday party, a romantic evening, holiday entertaining, or just arranging flowers for the pleasure of having them, more often than not your creative process begins with thinking about the color of the flowers that you want. To help you find what you are looking for, Flower Color Guide is the first reference book to organize flower types by color, with an emphasis on seasonality and creative color schemes - and the results are stunning in their sheer variety. What Pantone is to color, Flower Color Guide is to flowers.

Showcasing 400 flowers at their peak, with stunning photography taken by Putnam & Putnam in their Brooklyn studio, this guide includes an appendix featuring perforated pages, with tips on flower care, notes on how to prepare vessels and a list of suggested color schemes. A great gift to give, or to have for oneself, the book speaks to the most seasoned flower enthusiasts as well as those just beginning to explore the possibilities of arranging flowers.

Michael and Darroch Putnam have built a reputation for romantic, dramatic floral arrangements and installations using color as their guiding principle - here, they share their knowledge with readers worldwide: "This is the book we wished we had when we started doing flowers."

The first edition of Gaia's Garden sparked the imagination of America's home gardeners, introducing permaculture's central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers.

Many people mistakenly think that ecological gardening--which involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plants--can take place only on a large, multiacre scale. As Hemenway demonstrates, it's fun and easy to create a "backyard ecosystem" by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions, including:

Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure

Catching and conserving water in the landscape

Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals

Growing an edible "forest" that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods

This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it's established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that's needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden.

This is a must-have for anyone looking for garden design ideas. Hundreds of full-color images are cleverly arranged to offer thousands of possible design solutions and inspirations for any type of garden. The book includes gardens from all over the world and features projects by the best contemporary designers at work today, including Topher Delaney, James van Sweden, Piet Oudolf, Rick Darke, Sean Hogan, and many others. Alongside never-before-seen private gardens, the book also includes celebrated public spaces such as Manhattan's High Line--a disused elevated freight track redesigned into innovative, naturalistic plantings--whose ideas can be adapted for the home garden.

The book is divided into four sections: "Connect" looks at design features that act either as connecting or dividing elements; "Divide" considers elements that can be used to create rooms within gardens; "Space" explores different spatial types; and "Styles" covers every type of garden style throughout history, from cottage gardens to today's minimalist designs. Rounded out with a series of useful directories on designers, sources, and public gardens, this is the book for garden design ideas.

Create a foliage-driven garden that dazzles!

Although seductive, flowers, by their fleeting nature, are a fickle base to provide long-lasting gardens with year-round interest. Tackle this problem with the advice in Gardening with Foliage First. Learn how to first build a framework of foliage and then layer in flowers and other artistic elements as the finishing touches. This simple, recipe-style approach to garden design features 127 combinations for both sunny and shady gardens that work for a variety of climates and garden challenges.

Any backyard has the potential to refresh and inspire if you know what to do. Jan Johnsen's new book, Gardentopia: Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces, will delight all garden lovers with over 130 lushly illustrated landscape design and planting suggestions. Ms. Johnsen is an admired designer and popular speaker whose hands-on approach to "co-creating with nature" will have you saying, "I can do that!'

This info-packed, sumptuous book offers individual tips for enhancing any size landscape using 'real world' solutions. The suggestions are grouped into five categories that include Garden Design and Artful Accents, Walls, Patios, and Steps and Plants and Planting, among others. Whether you are an experienced gardener or a landscaping novice, Gardentopia will inspire you with tips such as 'Soften a Corner", "Paint it Black", and "Hide and Reveal".

Plant selection and garden style are deeply influenced by where we are gardening. To successfully grow a range of beautiful ornamental plants, every gardener has to know the specifics of the region's climate, soil, and geography.

Gardeners in the northeast are lucky--the regular summer rain, gorgeous summer blooms, and stunning fall color make it an ideal place to garden. But there are drawbacks, like hot and humid summers, bitterly cold winters, and mosquitos. TThe practical and beautiful Growing the Northeast Garden starts with a comprehensive overview of the weather and geography of the area, along with regionally specific advice on zones, microclimates, soil, pests, and maintenance. Profiles of the best trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and bulbs offer hundreds of plant suggestions, along with complete information on growth and care.

"A veritable goldmine for gardeners." --Plant Talk

We've all seen gorgeous perennial gardens packed with color, texture, and multi-season interest. Designed by a professional and maintained by a crew, they are aspirational bits of beauty too difficult to attempt at home. Or are they?

The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden makes a design-magazine-worthy garden achievable at home. The new, simplified approach is made up of hardy, beautiful plants grown on a 10x14 foot grid. Each of the 62 garden plans combines complementary plants that thrive together and grow as a community. They are designed to make maintenance a snap. The garden plans can be followed explicitly or adjusted to meet individual needs, unlocking rich perennial landscape designs for individualization and creativity.

"Gardenmaking, in its finest form, is a celebration of life and of love. David and his book epitomize this." --Lauren Springer Ogden

Brandywine Cottage is David Culp's beloved two-acre Pennsylvania garden where he mastered the design technique of layering--interplanting many different species in the same area so that as one plant passes its peak, another takes over. The result is a nonstop parade of color that begins with a tapestry of heirloom daffodils and hellebores in spring and ends with a jewel-like blend of Asian wildflowers at the onset of winter.

The Layered Garden shows you how to recreate Culp's majestic display. It starts with a basic lesson in layering--how to choose the correct plants by understanding how they grow and change throughout the seasons, how to design a layered garden, and how to maintain it. To illustrate how layering works, Culp takes you on a personal tour through each part of his celebrated garden: the woodland garden, the perennial border, the kitchen garden, the shrubbery, and the walled garden. The book culminates with a chapter dedicated to signature plants for all four seasons.

Llewellyn's Herbal Almanac offers a wide variety of practical ideas on how to benefit from nature's most versatile plants. With hands-on projects, fresh ideas, and tips and techniques, this guide is designed for herb enthusiasts of all skill levels. It also features innovative herbal ideas that span gardening, cooking, crafts, health, beauty, history, and lore. This year's edition also includes profiles for ginger, rhubarb, chamomile, sunflower, and comfrey and articles on:

Aromatics for Nervous, Respiratory, and Digestive Systems - Edible Wild Herbs and Grasses - Swedish Princess Cake with Matcha - Chewable Herbal Pills - Late-Season Herb Gardening - Italian Citrus Fruits - Soup Garden - Tinctures - Crafting with Recycled Materials - Herbal Bath Recipes - The Gardens of Pompeii - Gourmet Herbal Sandwiches - Conservation Plants - Homemade Herbal Scrubs - And Much More

Written by Donald J. Leopold, expert in horticulture, botany, forestry, and ecology

No other single volume on native plants has such comprehensive horticultural coverage as Native Plants of the Northeast: A Guide for Gardening and Conservation. Nearly seven hundred species of native trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, grasses, and wildflowers from the northeastern quarter of the United States and all of eastern Canada are included. Each plant description includes information about cultivation and propagation, ranges, and hardiness. An appendix recommends particular plants for difficult situations, as well as attracting butterflies, hummingbirds, and other wildlife.

Happy New Almanac Year! It's time to celebrate the 229th edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac! Long recognized as North America's most-beloved and best-selling annual, the handy yellow book fulfills every need and expectation as a calendar of the heavens, a time capsule of the year, an essential reference that reads like a magazine. Always timely, topical, and distinctively "useful, with a pleasant degree of humor," the Almanac is consulted daily by users from all walks of life, throughout the year.

The 2021 edition contains the fun facts, predictions, and feature items that have made it a cultural icon: traditionally 80 percent-accurate weather forecasts; notable astronomical events and time-honored astrological dates; horticultural, culinary, fashion, and other trends; historical hallmarks; best fishing days; time- and money-saving garden advice; recipes for refreshment; facts on folklore, farmers, home remedies, and husbandry; amusements and contests, plus too much more to mention--all in the inimitable way that the Almanac has done since 1792.

- Beloved by generations for being "useful, with a pleasant degree of humor," The Old Farmer's Almanac features everything under the Sun, including its much-in-demand long-range weather predictions, essential astronomical timetables, 2021 holidays, fascinating trends, best fishing days, valuable gardening information, tantalizing recipes, fun folklore, amusements, contests, and much more!
- Exclusive: 32 reference pages, covering such popular topics as full Moon names, hurricane names, flowers that attract birds and butterflies, U.S./metric measurement conversions, and many more!
- Easy-to-read edition, with crisp, white paper and larger type than the regular paperback version
- Includes 112 full-color pages
- Stiffer cover helps to protect the pages

If you want to grow healthy vegetables at home, but have hesitated because it seems too hard and time consuming, Organic Gardening for Everyone is your perfect hands-on guide--an "if I can do it, you can do it" case study that addresses your concerns and gets you started.

Loaded with practical advice and step-by-step guidance, Organic Gardening for Everyone takes a very personal and friendly approach to a subject that can be intimidating. It is a first-class primer on organic vegetable gardening, and an inspirational story about how anyone can balance the rigors of gardening with the demands of a modern, family-oriented lifestyle.

In 2012, a California mom decided to start an organic vegetable garden. But she went about it in an unusual way: she crowdsourced it by launching a YouTube channel under the name "CaliKim" and asking for help. And then she started planting. As questions came up, she turned to her viewers and subscribers and they replied with answers and advice. As she learned, her garden grew successfully--even in the hot, harsh California climate. Her expertise also grew, and now she answers many more questions than she asks and has become a very accomplished home gardener.

And CaliKim has a great story to tell: growing healthy organic vegetables for your family is not difficult, even for today's time-challenged lifestyles. She provides complete step-by-step information on growing the most popular edibles organically, and also gives sound advice on how to take on the challenges of balancing a hectic lifestyle with successful growing--and how to involve the whole family in the process.

You'll be rewarded for your effort every time you place a plate of natural, organic vegetables on the family dinner table knowing exactly what they are, what is in them, and where they came from.

"As practical as it is poetic. . . . an optimistic call to action." --Chicago Tribune

Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious. Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West is an inspiring call to action dedicated to the idea of a new nature--a hybrid of both the wild and the cultivated--that can flourish in our cities and suburbs. This is both a post-wild manifesto and practical guide that describes how to incorporate and layer plants into plant communities to create an environment that is reflective of natural systems and thrives within our built world.

In his articles and in best-selling books such as The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan has established himself as one of our most important and beloved writers on modern man s place in the natural world. A new literary classic, Second Nature has become a manifesto not just for gardeners but for environmentalists everywhere. As delicious a meditation on one man s relationships with the Earth as any you are likely to come upon (The New York Times Book Review), Second Nature captures the rhythms of our everyday engagement with the outdoors in all its glory and exasperation. With chapters ranging from a reconsideration of the Great American Lawn, a dispatch from one man s war with a woodchuck, to an essay about the sexual politics of roses, Pollan has created a passionate and eloquent argument for reconceiving our relationship with nature."

Named one of the Wall Street Journal's Best Interior-Design Books to Give as Holiday Presents

Founded in a historic nursery in southeast Pennsylvania, Terrain is a nationally renowned garden, home, and lifestyle brand with an entirely fresh approach to living with nature. It's an approach that bridges the gap between home and garden, the indoors and the outdoors. An approach that embraces decorating with plants and inviting the garden into every living space.

Terrain, the book, not only captures the brand's unique and lushly appealing sensibility in over 450 beautiful photographs but also shows, in project after project, tip after tip, how to live with nature at home. Here are ideas for flower arranging beyond the expected bouquet, using branches and wild blooms, seed heads and bulbs. Ten colorful container gardens inspired by painterly palettes. Dozens of ideas for making wreaths out of vines, dried stems, evergreens, and fresh leaves and fern fronds (which you learn to preserve in glycerin). Here are secrets for forcing branches to bloom in the middle of winter. Decorating with heirloom pumpkins, including turning them into tabletop planters. Simple touches--like massing high-summer hydrangeas into weathered baskets and scattering them around the patio--and more involved projects, including taking inspiration from Scandinavia and Britain to create a truly natural Christmas.

With inspiration for every season, Terrain blurs the indoors and out to bring the subtle and surprising joys of nature into our lives every day.