Category Archives: Garden book reviews

100 Gardens by Jamie Durie.

Jamie Durie is the pin-up boy of Australian landscaping who has also made inroads into the USA. But this is not a book about gardening. It is a book about designed outdoor living spaces which have a few plants included. Sumptuous set design, frequently for the rich, beautiful and probably famous, not a how-to manual. It is an ideas and inspiration book largely comprised of full page or double page photographs of 100 different outdoor spaces he has designed around the world. The man is a human dynamo and versatile – which is to say the spaces look different, avoiding a “signature style” which can make them all look very same-y. There is minimal text but the sumptuous photography tells the story. I admit I spotted a few gabions, there are coloured feature walls and I must warn readers that he is clearly the undisputed King of the Scatter Cushion. Let that not discourage you from a good ideas book if you are seeking inspiration, particularly where space is tight and you want outdoor living areas which show panache. Just be aware that it is dry climate living done with a hefty budget.

100 Gardens by Jamie Durie (Allen and Unwin; ISBN 978 1 74237 890 9) reviewed by Abbie Jury.
First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.

Salads Year-Round. A Planting Guide by Dennis Greville

The best thing about this book is the photography. It is sumptuous. The same cannot be said for the text, despite the author being vastly experienced and presumably knowledgeable. It does not show. You too can grow salad ingredients all year round. The recommended crops range freely and randomly from traditional lettuce and radish, across Europe (blood orange and bocconcini), through the Middle East (pomegranates and figs) and Asia (bamboo shoots, Vietnamese mint and galangal). Throw in some edible flowers like heartsease pansies and calendula and you have global salads, rounded out with the mandatory recipes. But it claims to be a planting guide. The growing information is perfunctory at best, but often woefully inadequate and sometimes entirely absent. There is no indication whatever of the range of climatic conditions we have in this country. You could not tell from this book whether you can expect to grow blood oranges in Invercargill or grapes and aubergines in Turangi. Nor will you learn anything about caring for the crop as it grows, let alone pests and diseases.

This is candyfloss gardening for the Christmas market. Leave it on the booksellers’ shelves. It should be remaindered on Boxing Day and disappear without a trace by New Year.

Salads Year-Round. A Planting Guide by Dennis Greville (New Holland; ISBN: 978 1 86966 3285) reviewed by Abbie Jury.

The latest take on living sustainably

First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.

Ah, the romance of picture book chookies in your back yard

Ah, the romance of picture book chookies in your back yard

The Good Life has come to Havelock North, but it has been renamed Green Urban Living and it is all absolutely simple and easy to manage, requiring very little time. That is according to author, Janet Luke, who has written a book of encyclopaedic spread (but not encyclopaedic detail) based on her own personal experience. The book is backed up by 32 You Tube clips and many website references.

Topics covered include setting up a green urban garden, compost, sustainable water use, growing vegetables, fruit, herbs, flowers (an eclectic mix ranging from paeonies to sunflowers to globe thistles), keeping chickens, beekeeping, worm farms, gardening with kids – all peppered with Top Tips, recipes, and hints. Plus photos – all in 172 pages. It is a very busy book.

On the positive side, the author is passionate about her topic and comes to it from practical and personal experience. If you are into the new age, trendy urban living which wants to be green but is not too purist, then you may well find the enthusiasm and simplified advice in this book is a wonderful motivator. I looked at some of the You Tube clips and there is an engaging naivety and brevity about them. Janet Luke has worked extremely hard to put together a comprehensive but user-friendly package.

If you are a crusty, hardened old cynic who has been through all this (going green is hardly a new concept – many of us chose that way back in the mists of the post Woodstock era of the 1970s), then the newfound zeal, sweeping statements and sometimes very woolly thinking of the latest converts can seem a little like reinventing the wheel.

Green? Hmm. I don’t see buying grow bags filled with potting mix as being green. Nor do I think wheeling your barrow around your neighbourhood as soon as you hear a lawnmower start up is particularly green. For starters, you have no idea what chemicals your neighbours may have used on their lawns (some lawn clippings are too toxic to use in a compost heap). Added to that, you are taking away their organic material to your site – which hardly follows permaculture principles.

Do we really believe that cabbage whites have large enough brains to be duped?

Do we really believe that cabbage whites have large enough brains to be duped?

We are deeply suspicious of the claim that white butterflies are territorial. The current received wisdom is that you can deter incoming cabbage whites by putting half eggshells on sticks amongst your brassicas, fooling them into thinking that another cabbage white is already in residence. This is not the first time I have seen this claim so I did a quick Google search to see if I could find a credible source to confirm it. The key word here is credible. I failed. We are storing our eggshells and when the first cabbage whites of the season show up here, Mark will be out testing this theory. Having observed clouds of cabbage whites on crops such as swedes, we lean to the view that this piece of advice is more wishful thinking than actual fact.

But it is not doubt that we feel regarding the claims that commercial corn is mostly genetically modified and controlled by the terminator gene so it makes sense to keep to heirloom varieties. The author clearly has not got to grips with the differences between F1 hybrids, line breeding, selection, genetic modification and the terminator gene. And seed companies in NZ like Kings and Yates might be a little annoyed to see the suggestion that their product is GM. Internationally, many commercial crops of maize have undergone genetic modification (in which case, it can equally be argued that the dreaded terminator gene is a good thing because it will stop the escape of some GM material into the wider environment), but what is sold in this country, certainly for home gardeners, is not GM. It is either the result of controlled crosses (which is an F1 hybrid) or of line breeding (selecting out the best performing cobs and continuing with them). That is what has brought us the new generation, sweet and tender corn that we all expect now. By all means go back to the heirloom varieties if you wish. Just don’t expect to be eating the tender and super sweet product because those old varieties are tougher and starchier and more akin to maize. Sweetcorn has improved in taste and texture in recent times, which cannot be said of all vegetables.

The retired beekeeper we had staying last week was critical of the chapter on beekeeping. He was surprised to find that top-bar hives, as promoted by the author with near religious zeal, are even legal in this country and he pointed out numerous reasons why they are inferior to the Langstroth hive. Of course Langstroths don’t look cute. He also felt that, given the author’s brief experience of beekeeping, she has been very lucky so far and she makes it look too easy altogether. I just thought that the advice that you could have your beehive on an apartment balcony or the shed roof came more from the Do As I Say school of advice, rather than the Do As I Do school. How on earth are you going to monitor and look after your hive if it is on a shed roof? That said, it is interspersed with some sound advice with regard to legal requirements and she recommends you join a local beekeeping club. I could not understand, either, why apartment dwellers would want to have a worm farm on their balcony. Move to ground level, I say.

It is great to see interest in topics related to sustainability, reducing one’s carbon footprint and organics. I would just prefer to see a little more rigour along with the joyous fervour.

Green Urban Living by Janet Luke. (New Holland; ISBN:978 1 86966 322 3).

New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson and Rob Lucas

New Zealand's Native TreesWhen one reviews books, there is a fair amount of dross to wade through to find the gems but only occasionally does a definitive benchmark study turn up. New Zealand’s Native Trees is a huge book (570 pages and 2300 photographs) and comprehensive, covering 320 different species of trees, including sub species and varieties – which is all of our trees, I understand. We don’t always realise in this country just how special and unique is our native flora and this book covers pretty much everything you will ever need or want to know. It is not an off-putting academic treatise, though it is a reference book (it is too large to be anything else – you need to rest it on a desk) but with accessible information. Trees are photographed in situ as well as with comprehensive close-ups to aid identification. The text is clear and able to be understood easily by anyone ranging from those with a desultory interest through to the enthusiast and the expert. Additional information of interest is contained in boxes – the cabbage tree moth which chews holes in cordyline foliage, how to tell kanuka from manuka and much more.

The lead author is Dr John Dawson, now retired Associate Professor from the Botany Department of Victoria University while the photographer is Rob Lucas, a retired horticultural lecturer from the Open Polytechnic. The book represents seven years of dedicated work. Publisher, Craig Potton, is renowned for producing handsome, high quality publications and the production values of this book are top quality which is entirely appropriate, given that it is a timeless book which will justify its place on every bookshelf for many years to come. How refreshing it is to see an NZ publisher who is not scared to bring out a tome of enduring quality about plants. All credit to the editor, Jane Connor.

New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson and Rob Lucas (Craig Potton Publishing; ISBN: 978 1 877517 01 3)

Yates Vegetable Garden by Rachel Vogan.

There must have been a secret memo that went around NZ publishers of gardening books and most acquiesced. Henceforth, gardening books should be chatty, friendly, folksy wolksy and not too technical. This book fits those criteria, as have too many other recent publications. So this book is probably adequate and user-friendly for absolute beginners. By the time you have enough experience to spot the shortcomings, you will probably have learned enough not to need it any longer. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that it is from the same mould as the earlier Yates Garden Guides which were the bible for NZ gardeners over many decades, just as the Edmonds Cookbook was the kitchen stalwart. This is not. Aubergines are listed under E (for egg plant). Sweetcorn can be grown in old recycling bins and dropped over to the neighbours to look after if you are going away for the weekend. Melons can be sown as late as January in warm climates (Bali, perhaps?). Product placement by the sponsor is intrusive.

Maybe one day soon, NZ publishers will realise it takes quite a bit of experience and knowledge to be able to sift through information and distil it down to its simplest, most user-friendly form. Friendly enthusiasm is not sufficient.

(Harper Collins; ISBN: 978 1 86950 928 6).
First published in the Waikato Times.