Earth Works: Readings for Backyard Gardeners

By Nancy R. Hugo

Book Overview

In Earth Works, award-winning columnist Nancy R. Hugo presents a month-by-month, season-by-season exploration of the pleasures and pains of gardening in the mid-Atlantic. Readers familiar with her columns in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginia Wildlife will welcome this collection of her most popular essays, written in the characteristic conversational style that has made her a regional favorite. Earth Works has a wealth of helpful hints and seasonal advice for both experienced and beginning gardeners, from how to attract butterflies and discourage Japanese beetles to when to prune; from how to move big tress to how to propagate a legacy rose. This book offers something for every backyard gardener and will be treasured year-round by enthusiasts looking for much-needed seasonal tips, as well as by snowbound readers longing for a reminder of the warmer days to come.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813917549
• ISBN13: 9780813917542
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Handy and pragmatic....

EARTH WORKS by Nancy Hugo is exactly the type of book you give to a new gardener along with an illustrated garden catalog. Hugo lives in Ashland Virginia, just north of Richmond in a Zone 7 setting which borders on Zone 8. Her book is filled with all kinds of gardening advice which she dispenses as a free lance writer for the RICHMOND-TIMES DISPATCH. Her writing is not particularly insightful (Diane Raver), funny (Henry Mitchell), spiritual (Jim Nollman), or scientific (Elizabeth Lawrence, Allen Lacey), but elements of all these aspects are present. Her strength is her pragmatic advice for the novice. Picure her as the neighbor you wish lived next door to you when you move into your new house. She has gardened for over 30 years at two locations (primary home and vacation home in Buckingham County). She offers advice for Zone 7 gardeners that is comparable to that from the PBS program Victory Garden.For example, she urges gardeners to grow organic and natural lawns because she is sensitive to the water pollution caused by the runoff from lawns (Americans use larger amounts of pesticides and herbicides on lawns than on food crops). On the other hand, she can take out 28 year-old pines because they are blocking her view and overshading her garden. She offers advice on gardening equipment from tillers to post-hole diggers, how to establish a compost pile, when to clip bushes and hedges, what to do with the needles that fall off the old pines, and which plants to grow for Christmas greenery. She describes her gardening year in month to month episodes, and covers a variety of plants that will do well anywhere in Zones 7-8. I recommend this book to anyone about to become a gardener.