Smith & Hawken: The Book of Outdoor Gardening

By Jim Anderson, Smith & Hawken, Jim Anderson

From Smith & Hawken, and now with a striking new cover, here is a book that offers a distinctly American approach to the art, craft, and pastime of gardening. Embracing British perennial beds, French intensive techniques, antique roses, heirloom vegetables, alternative lawns, and a bedrock philosophy of working with-not against-the ecosystem, this illustrated organic gardener's bible includes a 350-entry color plant guide and is written for all North American regions and hardiness zones. Readers will learn how to feed the dirt, achieve good tilth, create and use compost. How to plant in contours, manage water, plant outdoors. How to work with plants that not only come back every year, but bloom early and long, smell great, and even provide a pleasing silhouette in winter. There are sections on tools and gear, grooming and deadheading, winterizing and ornamenting the garden; digging and planting; propagating garden plants from seed; the secrets of maintenance. Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club's Country Homes & Gardens Club, the Newbridge Garden Book Club, and the Rodale Book Club. Over 140,000 copies in print.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0761102310
• ISBN13: 9780761102311
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 3.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.5" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

You can never have too many gardening books.

It is past time for my raised garden, small as it is. Each year, it gains a new personality. In the winter, it gets replaced with black river rocks. Then each year the rocks get removed, and the planting begins. One year, it was just cat thyme for my outdoor friends to travel. One year, just different lavenders. I am a little late this year, and it looks like a few natives have taken possession. I found this book, or should I say it found me. They say you cannot tell a book by its cover. But it was the cover that attracted me. Then I glanced at the pictures before reading. Wow. I can do some marvelous things and garden wisely. However, I do not think I can get my 2,000 sq' house to look quite like the homes in the pictures. I would have bought the book alone for the pictures. When this book gets down to the technicalities of gardening from soil to plants to tools and how to use them, there is something to learn, no matter how much you know. You can get more out of this book if you have any gardening background. Look up Smith & Hawken on the internet. "The more you garden, the more you grow."

Complete Reference for the Novice

I am new to gardening and have been looking for a comprehensive reference to getting started with gardening. This book has answered all my questions, including soil preparation, plant selection, necessary tools, planting, and how to tend the garden. It even has information on propagating, containers and furniture. I highly recommend this book to the beginning gardener.

Best for beginning gardeners, useful for experts

Gardening books for a broad audience are rarely successful. It's extremely difficult to present basic information for beginning gardeners that doesn't bore more experienced plantsmen to blindness. On the other hand, how many beginners have had to plod through chapters on advanced topics in so-called "general" gardening books - such as grafting rootstock or the family tree (no pun intended) of a minor succulent - just to find basic information on when to plant potatoes? And how often does one find right-way, wrong-way statements in basic gardening books that directly conflict with the statements made in the next book on the shelf, with no attempt to explain the rationale behind the recommendations?Fortunately for all gardening addicts, Smith & Hawken's Book of Outdoor Gardening is the exception to the rule - at least the first half. Each chapter and sidebar successfully blends basic horticultural information with unique tips and techniques for the master gardener. This book is a handy reference tool for any gardener as he moves through the various stages of his craft. And where conflicting recommendations exist, the authors take time to explain how BOTH ideas are correct, but are dependent upon the circumstances. Good examples include the proper planting depth for roses, and the wisdom of using chemical fertilizers and soil amendments.I've given this book 4 stars, for two reasons: First, as I've noted above, The Book of Outdoor Gardening is quite a worthwhile read for most gardeners. However, a novice would probably find it most useful, and for this audience the book should receive 5 stars. Expert gardeners will still find good information, but since this type of focused data can be found in specialty books, my rating for this audience would be 3 stars. Hence, a compromise 4 stars.My second reason for giving 4 stars is the plant list that forms the second half of the book. This is a personal issue: in general, I find plant lists woefully incomplete and inadequate. In trying to please novice gardeners, who usually want information on traditional plants, and experts, who want detailed content regarding hard-to-find or hard-to-cultivate plants, the authors left out a number of important species in both categories. This is most likely due to space considerations; however, since purchasing the book - and using it frequently for the information in the first half - I've often had to refer to other books for plant information.

The Book of Outdoor Gardening

I found this book to be very helpful when setting up my landscaping at my new house. It was a useful guide in determining what plants would work for my area. The beautiful pictures were also great examples of what to expect.