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May 20, 2005
How-To Books
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People who have never had a garden are often at a loss to know how to start one and surprisingly anxious about the process. Fear of failure--"But I might kill a plant"--seems to be a big part of the problem. True gardeners know that plants die all the time, and one of the peculiar joys of the pastime is taking advantage of your failures to try out something new. The biggest fear when you take up gardening is not that you might have a black thumb, but that you might develop a dangerous and often expensive addiction to new plants.
For all those would-be gardeners who don't know quite where to start there are two new books, both by well-known New York gardeners, aimed squarely at beginners. Garden Your City by Barbara Hobens Felt is an appealing and sensible how-to book for aspiring urban gardeners. It covers everything from where--a window box, a fire escape, a roof, the neighboring building's tree pit--to how--hard work and determination. Ms. Felt is a community gardener and is particularly good on the nuts and bolts of urban gardening. She starts at the beginning; make sure you have permission to garden from the legal owner of the land, check for a water source, observe the sun and shade pattern of your site. There is a demystifying section on starting plants from seed and a good list of easy plants for beginners. She goes on to more complicated projects like creating a compost pile and building a pond. The directions are simple and the tone is confidence-building. YOU can do this. This is the ideal book for neophyte urban gardeners, whether confronting a postage-stamp backyard or a derelict lot in need of beautification. The design is also friendly and approachable with clear but gently humorous line drawings that are much more effective than the photographs.
Although it will be useful to city gardeners everywhere, this is really a New York book. The problems she describes while universal, have particular resonance here. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe wrote the introduction, and the author, a garden activist, started her gardening career in Hell's Kitchen at the Clinton Community Garden, one of the city's oldest and most beautiful community gardens.
A more general work is How to Get Started in Northeast Gardening, by Darryl Trout with Rob Proctor. Trout is a well-known garden writer and lecturer from Queens. This is part of a "First Garden" series and is geared more to the suburbs. It, too, starts with the premise that the reader knows less than nothing about the subject and leads them through the first steps of establishing a garden. There is a useful section called "Plants for Success," which describes a number of plants that are particularly suited to our area and includes good photographs and cultural requirements. The list, while not encyclopedic, will definitely get a new gardener started.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at May 20, 2005 09:06 AM