Tag Archives: Garden book reviews

Threatened Plants of New Zealand

After last week’s book review lambasting an author who was way out of her depth, the first indication that this publication is in a different league altogether is the use of multiple authors, all with short biographies which demonstrate a depth of experience and knowledge of the topic. You can be sure that this major reference book has been extensively peer reviewed.

It was a revelation here just how many of our native plants are threatened with extinction – one in thirteen apparently. We knew about Pennantia baylisiana (down to a single, naturally occurring plant in its habitat on Three Kings Island) because we have a large cutting-grown specimen from it in our own garden. Similarly we knew that the kakabeak was seriously endangered but not that it too was reduced to a single plant in the wild. Many of the other threatened plants were news to us and the authors are flagging real concerns that we are in danger of losing our diversity of native plants. Alas plants are not as cute as black robins or kakapo so they do not garner the same public attention.

This is a sumptuous hardback book with a great deal of technical information but well organised and presented so that a broad spectrum of interested readers can find the information they need. Each entry has its botanical name, conservation status measured by accepted national and international convention, botanical description, details of how to recognise and identify the plant, its distribution, habitat and threats to survival. Add in several photographs and a map showing the location in the wild and you end up with a really good reference book which will last for many years in this country. Its somewhat hefty price-tag is justified and anybody with an interest in our native flora or botany will want to have their own copy on the bookshelf.

Threatened Plants of New Zealand by Peter de Lange, Peter Heenan, David Norton, Jeremy Rolfe and John Sawyer. (Canterbury University Press; ISBN: 978 1 877257 56 8).

Colourful Gardens by Dennis Greville

We are so over green gardens, we are past claiming that gardening is primarily about foliage not flowers and equally we have moved on from good taste mono colour palates and static, unchanging gardens. I am with the author on his determination to celebrate seasonal colour and flowers.

Readers of the NZ Gardener magazine will know Dennis Greville as a regular contributor. He is very experienced and competent, both in writing and photography, and I am guessing that he really enjoyed doing this book because at times he treads a fine line between enthusiasm and a hint of purple prose. But an exuberant topic such as colour deserves a somewhat passionate text. The first forty pages give a useful theoretical background, the remaining chapters feature the colour palette and impact in the garden. There are many coloured photographs, on every page in fact and all captioned.

It is not a beginner’s book. Too much plant interest and too many photos of fairly sophisticated planting combinations for that. Hallelujah for an author and a publisher who are not scared to use proper plant names as well as giving the common reference. On an experience scale of 1 to 10 (1 being absolute beginners), this book sits appropriately in the mid level as being suitable for gardeners in that 3 to 6 level of ability and experience.

(Published by New Holland. ISBN 978 1 86966 269 1)

The New Zealand Plant Doctor, Andrew Maloy

A friend and colleague suggested that maybe I could be offering a garden problems section on the garden pages of the Taranaki Daily News and I recoiled a little so I was really pleased to get a copy of this book which lets me off the hook. It is cheap and cheerful (though on a nice quality of paper) and it will answer many of your queries about common garden problems. Most importantly, the advice given is good – knowledgeable, practical and not driven by sponsor’s products. Organic solutions are given where there is good evidence that they will work. Readers who subscribe to the Weekend Gardener magazine will recognise the content. It is pretty much a cut and paste collation of the author’s problem solving column in that publication but what makes it useful and accessible is having it in one book with a good index at the back. I read the section on buxus blight and, to my relief, the advice was very much in line with what I have previously written. If you want to know why your citrus have warty skins, your carrots grow forked or how to deal with narcissus fly – the answers are all here. There was nothing on witches broom in cherry trees but there is pretty good coverage of many common problems. Worth having on the bookshelf so go out and buy yourself a copy.

(New Holland, ISBN: 978 1 86966 273 8) Advertised price $NZ24.99

Separating the genuine enthusiasts from candyfloss fashion gardening

Christmas must be close. The New Zealand garden book market has sprung into life and vegetable gardening is still red hot. Two titles landed simultaneously, both veg garden guides and both by younger women who represent the new face of gardening in this country. Auckland landscaper Xanthe White gives us a month by month guide for the novice vegetable gardener while Auckland food writer and keen vegetable gardener Sally Cameron gives us the Tui version of the famed Yates Garden Guide, though focused only on vegetables and herbs.

The NZ Vegetable Garden is a solid book, designed to be used repeatedly (good PVC plastic cover). Yes it is sponsored by Tui but that is generally unobtrusive. The text avoids the cult of the personality so the book may well have some longevity on the shelf because it is a genuinely useful guide to growing vegetables and herbs at home. It contains most things you are likely to need to look up on both individual crops and on the wider management of the edible garden. Of course one can go through and pick holes and criticize individual details but the bottom line is that this is a pretty comprehensive, well organized book with good layout and helpful photos. It is a reference book and it avoids dumbing down or over simplifying the subject. There is a bit of crossover into the kitchen which is entirely appropriate – handy instructions on sprouting your own beans and one tasty but practical recipe per vegetable or herb. Sally Cameron’s last book, Grow It, Cook It, was a more personal effort. As I recall, I commented at the time that it was better on the recipes than the veg growing side. I wouldn’t say that about this book which we will be keeping on our own garden reference bookshelf.

I have one pedantic niggle. Last time I looked, the adjective from fungus was fungal, upon occasion even fungoid. Fungous is something that has the transitory nature of a fungus. So the useful chapter on fungous diseases should really be on fungal diseases. But they can change that on a reprint and this book may well prove to be worth its salt as a useful reference and therefore run to reprints.

Organic Vegetable Gardening has the look of a book dreamed up by the publishers. I am not sure how long the lead-in time is but I am guessing eighteen months to two years. So if you imagine up on the top floor of Random House Publishing, the editors and managers met and the conversation may have run as follows:

“Item 5 on the agenda: Christmas 09. Wot’s gonna be hot for 09?”
“I have a list here. Home mechanics. Making new clothes from old. Surviving the property crash. Return to floral art. Organic vegetable gardening…”
“That’s a good one. Organics are hot. Vegetables are hot. Great idea. Now who can we get to do it and give us a fresh face which appeals to both Gen X and Gen Y?”
“How about Xanthe White? Good designer. Young, trendy, lovely smile. Won a silver gilt at Chelsea, don’t you know. Now the pin-up girl for motherhood. Smart too, and can write.”
“Great. But does she know anything about growing vegetables?”
“What does that matter? If she doesn’t know anything, she can do it on the run and record progress as she goes. I can see the press release now: walk alongside Xanthe as she learns…”
“Hasn’t that been done already? Don’t Lynda Hallinan and the gals at The Gardener have that area pretty well sewn up?”
“Well, yes and no. They are moving on. They are hardly novices any longer. No, there is going to be an empty space there. Let’s give Xanthe the role.”
“But how about the organics side? Does Xanthe know about organics?”
“Look, what is Google for? Besides we are all organic at heart, aren’t we? Organics is as much about what you leave out (the toxins and chemicals) as about what you actually do.”
“Great. All go. Sign Xanthe. Now what sponsors do we have for this book and what sponsors is Xanthe likely to be able to bring on board with her?”

The result is learn how to garden one step behind the charming Xanthe, who is undeniably somewhat glamorous in a wholesome new age sort of way, but a book driven by the cult of the personality, intrusive product placement, and superficial, with no depth of experience in either organics or growing vegetables. So we have advice such as that on digging. “Never dig any deeper than 10cm unless preparing for a very specific need, otherwise you will upset the natural structure of the soil.” Pardon me, but didn’t I just read about Xanthe gardening in raised beds with soil mixes (Daltons Lawn Mix, shipped in from Matamata, no less) and composts brought in from elsewhere? Where is the soil structure she wants to protect? And if you garden on poor soils, are you not trying to alter the soil structure for better outcomes?

I am not confident about the advice on composts either. Do people really need to be told not to put metals or plastics in their compost bin? Let alone painted timber. “No, Phil, you can not put the old weatherboards in the compost bin. Hire a skip.” And if you are going to put a blanket ban on adding any manure from animals which eat meat, this rules out Grunt, the ever useful pig compost, ZooDoo, and chook manure. Poultry are not vegetarian. But honestly, how many new veg gardeners from Ponsonby and Grey Lynn are going to pile the kiddies into the people mover of a weekend and drive out to the country to slip a few dollars into the hands of some friendly farmer (just look for the one wearing an old straw hat, chewing on a piece of hay and speaking in the thick accent as befits Friendly Yokel) just so they can buy some wholesome horse or cattle manure for the compost heap at home (page 61, I kid you not).

There has been some heavy criticism here of the claim in the book title to be organic. It is fine to write a book aimed at young women from St Heliers and Grey Lynn who probably drive SUVs but want a potager and a home orchard. It is not fine to reduce organics to the same level. We are keen to see organics demystified, separated from the flakey side which confuses faith and good practice and given some clarity of thought. Alas this book reduces organics to cliché.

But spare a thought for poor Xanthe. Presumably the crop of books for the 2010 Christmas market is well underway already. Odds on Sally Cameron will have been given the topic of a manual on caring for the home orchard. All those multitudinous fruit trees sold over the past couple of years will be needing some attention by then. The topic should sit well with Sally’s style and Tui’s sponsorship. And Sally can do splendid seasonal recipes to go with harvests.

I had already predicted that Xanthe’s allocated topic for next year would likely be the low maintenance productive garden, notwithstanding the fact that vegetable gardens and easy care are mutually exclusive concepts. The October copy of the The Gardener magazine arrived, in which Xanthe has a page where she solves readers’ design problems. There is the letter: “We live on a lifestyle block with four young kids and don’t have much time for gardening. But I’d love to have fruit trees and veges. I want a funky, colourful, edible jungle … but it would need to be low maintenance.” Funky? Colourful? Edible jungle? But low maintenance? Xanthe is a professional landscape designer with an established reputation. I sure hope she is paid well to deal with this type of candyfloss fashion gardening.

The NZ Vegetable Garden, Sally Cameron (Penguin, ISBN 978 014 320228 8)
Organic Vegetable Gardening, Xanthe White (Godwit, ISBN 978 1 86962 1551)

Yates Young Gardener Growing Things to Eat, by Janice Marriott

We are pretty keen on young children here and also on gardening so we really wanted to be positive about this book. But we can’t be. It is frenetically busy, hyped, packed with a gazillion ideas, jokes, puzzles, talking worms and snails and a whole lot more. The bottom line is that the technical information is patchy and the activities and experiments are often too superficial and lack detail so are destined to fail. By way of examples: “Put a plant into a glass jar of coloured water. Watch the leaves change colour.” I think what is meant is that you can change the colour of a white flower such as a camellia or a carnation or a variegated leaf with white patches by putting it in a jar of water with food colouring or ink added but children (or facilitating adult) need an idea of quantity of colouring to liquid. And they are not putting a plant in the water; they are putting a flower or suitable leaf into the water. We used to grow pineapple tops but when did you last see a pineapple in the supermarket with an intact rosette of leaves at the top? They are generally all cut off now. A pine cone is not a seed. Nor is pine seed dispersed by the cone rolling down hills. Get the picture? Too busy, too much content with insufficient critical thought and rigour in the underpinning information.

This is also a book which purports to be for children but it is actually a handbook of ideas and information for a sympathetic adult to use with children in shared activities. It may appeal to hands-on, dedicated parents such as home schoolers or Playcentre parents but despite the prevailing busy-ness and jokey-ness it is unlikely to keep any child busy and motivated on their own. Give it as a gift to parents, not to children.

Harper Collins ISBN 978 1 86950 7947