Sue Fisher & Michael MacCaskey 
Gardening For Dummies 

If you want to develop your green fingers and be part of one of the most popular pastimes in the UK, Gardening For Dummies is the book for you. Packed with expert advice, helping the novice get a solid start and the seasoned gardener broaden their breadth of knowledge, you can learn and develop skills in how to do everything from planning your planting to controlling pests – and everything in between. Full of useful illustrations and insider’s tips this book will be a vital reference for everyone with an interest and love of gardening, whether you have a few containers in the back yard or a huge back garden with a rolling lawn.

Table of Content

Introduction.

Part I: Getting Going with Gardening.

Chapter 1: Just a Few Ground-Level Questions and Answers.

Chapter 2: Planning Your Garden.

Chapter 3: Planning Your Planting.

Part II: Designing with Plants.

Chapter 4: Trees, Hedges, and Shrubs.

Chapter 5: Lawns and Ground Covers.

Chapter 6: Climbers and Wall Shrubs.

Part III: Colour Your World.

Chapter 7: Annuals.

Chapter 8: Perennials and Ornamental Grasses.

Chapter 9: Bulbs.

Chapter 10: Roses.

Part IV: At Ground Level.

Chapter 11: Understanding and Improving Soil.

Chapter 12: Raising Plants from Seeds.

Chapter 13: Choosing and Putting in Your Plants.

Part V: Caring for Your Plants.

Chapter 14: Watering, Feeding, and Composting.

Chapter 15: Snip, Snip: Pruning and Propagating.

Chapter 16: Fighting Pests, Diseases, and Weeds.

Chapter 17: Tools of the Trade.

Part VI: Special Gardens.

Chapter 18: Food Gardens.

Chapter 19: Container Gardens.

Chapter 20: Gardens for Wildlife.

Chapter 21: Gardening in Small Spaces.

Chapter 22: Gardening for Fragrance.

Part VII: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 23: Ten Quick Projects.

Chapter 24: Ten Tips for Creating a Wildlife Garden.

Index.

About the author

Sue Fisher is a lifelong plant enthusiast whose main aim is
to make gardening as user-friendly and approachable as possible.
After training at Oaklands College, St Albans, the first ten years
of her career were spent in the nursery and garden centre industry,
including five years as plant buyer for a group of top garden
centres and a landscape company. In 1990 Sue decided to bring her
enthusiasm for plants to a wider audience and became a freelance
writer and broadcaster. To date she has written ten books,
including Garden Colour, Essential Plants for Small Gardens,
and Fast Plants, as well as co-authoring Ground Force
Garden Handbook and Geoff Hamilton’s Gardening
Year, and contributed to several of the Reader’s Digest
gardening books. Her gardening features have been published in many
magazines and newspapers, including Gardeners’ World,
Gardens Monthly, and Garden News. Sue currently gardens
in Buckinghamshire where her two young children are fast making her
an expert on family gardening.

Michael Mac Caskey began his college career as a creative
arts student at San Francisco State University in 1969, but in the
process became instead a passionate gardener. By 1976 he received a
Bachelor of Science degree in ornamental horticulture from
California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. Since
then, he’s had the good fortune to work for and learn from
garden editors such as Walter Doty, Richard Dunmire, Joe
Williamson, and Bill Marken. A second-generation Los Angeles native
(zone 9), he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Vermont-based
National Gardening Magazine (zone 4) in 1994. Since then,
he’s been learning about gardening in a short-season,
coldwinter region. His magazine writing has been honoured by both
the Western Magazine Publishers Association and the Garden Writers
of America.

Bill Marken is the editor of Rebecca’s Garden
Magazine, a new publication from Hearst Magazines Enterprises
based on the popular television show. A lifelong resident of
California, Bill served as editor-in-chief of Sunset, the
Magazine of Western Living, from 1981 to 1996. Earlier in
his career, he wrote for the magazine’s garden section,
pitched in on several editions of the bestselling Western Garden
Book, and generally nurtured his interests in subjects related
to gardening, landscaping, travel, and other aspects of the good
life in the West. A vacation garden at 6, 200-feet elevation gives
him insight into coldwinter climates with 100-day growing
seasons.

The National Gardening Association is the largest
member-based, nonprofit organisation of home gardeners in the US.
Founded in 1972 (as ‘Gardens for All’) to spearhead the
community garden movement, today’s National Gardening
Association is best known for its bimonthly publication,
National Gardening magazine. Reporting on all aspects of
home gardening, each issue is read by some half-million gardeners
worldwide. For more information about the National Gardening
Association in the US, see its Web site at www.garden.org.