Review: Gardening The Complete Beginner’s Guide

Gardening can seem a very complicated thing to those who’ve never tried it. Latin names and technical terms are bandied about by experienced growers, leaving newbies mystified and often afraid to ask for an explanation. Gardening The Complete Beginner’s Guide by the Gardeners’ World team aims to provide the answers.

(I was given a review copy but am not paid for this review.)

Sub-titled ‘How to Garden in Ten Easy Steps’, it really does go right back to basics, taking would-be gardeners from planning a garden, and choosing plants right through to propagation and seasonal jobs. There’s advice on how to determine which way your plot faces, how to test soil type and what are the essential tools. The ‘5 steps to success’ for suggested projects, including growing veg and planting out, ensure you should suceed.

Everything is explained in clear, easy to understand language and there are ‘jargon buster’ sections that outline what gardeners mean by ericaceous or cuttings, for example.

Asters are a suggestion for an easy to grow perennial.

Gardening The Complete Beginner’s Guide covers practical aspects of gardening as well, including how to plant a tree, what to look for when buying plants and how to sow seeds. There’s also a section on how to garden with wildlife in mind. Woven throughout the book are tips on everything from how to protect plants over winter, which projects really need a professional, and to how to prune a shrub rose.

The many photos not only help to make instructions clear, they are also used to suggest things you could try with sections of ‘Design Ideas and Inspiration’. And if you don’t have much space, there are ways of maximising space, such as making the most of vertical space and using containers.

Cornus kousa is suggested as a foolproof tree.

With seasonal calendars of jobs to do and suggested projects, it’s a good mix of the informative and the inspirational.

And it neatly sums up the most important aspect of gardening – the ability to look forward and not dwell on mistakes or failures: “Gardeners are innate optimists – always planting for their future pleasure, safe in the knowledge that this year will be better than the last.”

Gardeners’ World, Gardening The Complete Beginner’s Guide is published by BBC Books with an RRP of £26. You can buy it here for £20.23. (If you buy via this link, I receive a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.) Alternatively, you may wish to buy from an independent bookseller here. All prices correct at time of publication of this post.

Enjoyed this? You can read more of my gardening and garden-related book reviews here.

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