Conscious Gardening

Dry summer, wet winter climate? This is your must have plant guide. Selecting plants suited to your climate is the first step toward a thriving, largely self-sustaining garden that connects with and supports the natural world. With gentle and compelling text and stunning photographs of plants in garden settings, Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates by Nora Harlow and Saxon Holt is a guide to native and climate-adapted plants for summer-dry, winter-wet climates of North America's Pacific coast. Knowing what these climates share and how and why they differ, you can choose to make gardens that maintain and expand local and regional biodiversity, take little from the earth that is not returned, and welcome and accommodate the presence of wildlife. With global warming, it is now even more critical that we garden in tune with climate.

The Art of Mindful Gardening explores the activity of gardening as an exercise for both body and mind. Ark Redwood, head gardener at Chalice Well, one of Britain’s most sacred gardens, guides you through the changing seasons, expanding your knowledge of how to be conscious of the living and providing expert insight on meditating in your natural environment. This book will be essential reading for those looking to add a mindful dimension to the experience of gardening.

This volume provides a step-by-step guide to offsetting climate change through gardens and landscaping. This book includes information, based on the latest climate research, on how to prevent climate change in your garden and beyond. It introduces climate science for gardeners and gives tips on reducing your landscape's climate footprint and even making your garden into a "carbon sink". This work provides strategies for placing trees, shrubs, and vines to reduce the energy needed to heat and cool your home and information about how to design a food garden that minimizes emissions while providing fresh, healthy produce. In addition it includes an overview of community tree-planting, food saving, and citizen science projects.

A stylish, inspirational and practical guidebook to maintaining a more environmentally friendly outdoor space, now shortlisted for the GMG GARDEN BOOK OF THE YEAR award! Sustainable gardener Marian Boswall walks us through the process of creating and maintaining a sustainable outdoor space, offering tips, guidance and step-by-step projects designed to help you lead a more low-impact lifestyle. Whether it’s by harnessing natural energy, converting to peat-free compost, reducing your consumption of plastic, saving seeds or creating garden areas from reclaimed materials, there are numerous ways – both big and small – to make a difference. Entries cover every aspect of the garden, from how to create a space and draw up a plan for your sustainable garden from scratch, to advice on boundaries and fences, and guidance on how to ethically source materials to make sure your garden is as environmentally friendly as it is beautiful. This book also contains several projects with easy-to-follow instructions that you can replicate at home, such as creating a frame for succulents to grow in out of recycled materials. Projects include: Plant an edible hedge - This berry-laden boundary brings joy into your garden and offers a great way to connect to and notice the seasons for both children and adults, Make a lawn spiral - This innovative approach to lawns will reduce mowing time by half (thereby saving energy) and will create a beautiful, textured swirl of flowering grass which is good for pollinators, Make your own frame for succulents - Using recycled and found materials, create your own vertical planter for a host of succulents, perfect for balconies or other small spaces, Saving your seeds - Collecting seeds from your garden is the perfect way to start planning ahead for your garden next year, all while reducing waste. Sustainable Garden will guide anyone hoping to take informed and intelligent decisions to make a difference, but who perhaps don’t know where to begin.

Unearthing a garden's beauty by engaging the environment

Healer and ‘plant spirit whisperer’ Zorah Cholmondeley seeks to revolutionize the way we view our gardens and the natural world. Introducing the faery realms, she invites us to witness the tremendous variety and interplay of life-forms connected to the earth. Beyond the fae, she speaks of gnomes, dragons, angels and entities such as the Master Pan, all of whom have a unique part to play in the dynamics and health of our planet. And, it is their fondest wish that we should become aware of them! In The Enchanted Garden, Zorah shows how we can become allies with the fae and other nature guardians – to co-create a world with infinite possibilities for love, joy and togetherness. In a series of short chapters, she portrays faery history, introduces her muse Queen Maeve, explains how to create a garden for the faeries, discusses fears of connecting to the fae and the importance of fun and reverie, suggests how crystals can be used in the garden, describes the significance of weather, the moon, seasonal festivals, and much more. In the second part of the book she presents communications from the spirit beings of dozens of plants and trees – from aconitum to the yew tree – with meditations and spiritual insights. Can we learn to be sufficiently still in order to listen with our hearts to the natural world all around us, including the subtle ecosphere of the fae? This book is for anyone who seeks to relate to nature and their gardens more consciously. ‘The Enchanted Garden brings you closer to nature’s wisdom and will surely spark faith in the Magic that’s forever around and within us!’ – Calista, author of Unicorn Rising and The Female Archangels

'This is a clearly presented work, with accessible topic headings and plenty of good advice sprinkled with engaging personal anecdotes. The message at the book's heart is to adopt a greener way of being and to see oneself as part of nature, not removed from it. On this point it is exceptional, distinguishing itself from many of the green gardening books written in recent years.' The English Garden magazine 'Conversational, interesting, and personal ... it reaffirms the link between what we love to do and why we should be doing it with nature, the planet and our health in mind.' RHS The Garden magazine If you want a sustainable garden and a better relationship with nature, A Greener Life is the guide you need. Packed with inspirational images and practical tips, the book covers garden planning, organic composting and vegetable growing, as well as sustainable planting, rewilding and wildlife-attracting environments. Learn traditional gardening techniques like propagating and growing from cuttings to make your garden self-sustaining, and discover plants that attract hover flies, bees and butterflies. With Jack Wallington's warmth and expertise on every page, this is an ideal book for new gardeners seeking greener practices.