The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love Book PDF, ePub eBook

Join our eBook service for unlimited books & audiobooks. Get a free 7 day subscription! ↓↓↓↓↓


Book Descriptions:
The Rodale Organic Gardening Book series is a consistently reliable basic reference, and the colorful New American Backyard is no exception. Kris Medic is an arborist who, according to her jacket biography, is almost absurdly qualified to write about garden design. In this comfortable, useful volume she provides a guide to sprucing up the backyard for those of us who weren't born knowing what an NPK ratio is.

Suburban America's obsession with the perfect swath of green hasn't been an altogether healthy one, but thankfully the excessive use of weed-killers, overmowing, and wasteful watering habits that characterized the last half-century of lawn and garden care are being reevaluated in books like Medic's. Medic emphasizes that adoption of responsible organic methods can actually be more effective than chemical intervention in obtaining that lush lawn of our dreams. It's just plain sensible, for example, to cut the grass at a relatively high level and to leave the clippings on the ground: the long grass and clippings create shade, which limits opportunities for weed growth and keeps the roots and soil cool and moist longer, requiring less frequent watering.

It's also easier--and that's the message at the heart of this book. The most thumbed-through and soil-stained pages of The New American Backyard are sure to be those in the second half, "Timesaving Lawn and Garden Techniques." How to sharpen lawnmower blades yourself, how to prune a tree or thin out a bush with the speed and confidence of a pro, how to choose a grass-seed mixture that's right for your yard (and decipher those cryptic seed-bag labels), how to use water efficiently--Medic's valuable tips will help you to cut down the time spent weeding or waving the hose over the lawn on Sunday mornings when you'd rather be relaxing with a cup of coffee and the paper.

The first part of the book contains the ubiquitous checklists, using which the prospective gardener is supposed shape a vision of the ideal (but doable) backyard environment. The reader should not be discouraged by the presence of these vague lists--in books of this sort they're never particularly helpful, and aren't in this one--because Medic, perhaps anticipating our impatience with authors who prod us into penciling into their books what we already know, quickly abandons that annoying tack in favor of the juicy stuff: well-illustrated, real-life landscaping makeovers and detailed descriptions of how to deal with common yard problems. We learn how and what to plant in those low marshy areas and in small or odd-shaped lots, and how to reduce street noise, wind, and glare. A directory of Medic's "top plant picks" features thorough evaluations of specific varieties of trees, shrubs, groundcovers, vines, perennials, and annuals. While the list is certainly not exhaustive, and of course not every plant is suited to every region of the country, Medic's riffs on, for example, the amur maple or English ivy will give novices an idea of the factors to consider in choosing what to plant: the variety's mature size, hardiness and heat zones, preferred sites (sun or shade, swampy soil or dry, and so on), pruning requirements, and pest and disease issues.

Readers whose backyards have ever been besieged by Japanese beetles or crabgrass may have a hard time accepting Medic's recommendations on the cure front (shake the bugs off?), but on the prevention side, this book makes it easy to avoid or at least ameliorate those problems in the planning and planting stages. Xeriscaping, composting, and preventive pest control have never seemed more practical than in Medic's water-wise and pesticide-poor chapters. --Liana Fredley

The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love by Kris Medic

From reader reviews:

Juan Higgins:

Book will be written, printed, or outlined for everything. You can realize everything you want by a guide. Book has a different type. We all know that that book is important thing to bring us around the world. Beside that you can your reading ability was fluently. A publication The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love will make you to become smarter. You can feel far more confidence if you can know about almost everything. But some of you think in which open or reading any book make you bored. It is far from make you fun. Why they may be thought like that? Have you seeking best book or suited book with you?

Katherin Buerger:

The reserve untitled The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love is the reserve that recommended to you to study. You can see the quality of the reserve content that will be shown to an individual. The language that author use to explained their ideas are easily to understand. The article writer was did a lot of investigation when write the book, therefore the information that they share for you is absolutely accurate. You also could possibly get the e-book of The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love from the publisher to make you considerably more enjoy free time.

Tony Sanford:

The book untitled The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love contain a lot of information on the item. The writer explains the woman idea with easy technique. The language is very clear and understandable all the people, so do certainly not worry, you can easy to read it. The book was written by famous author. The author provides you in the new period of literary works. You can easily read this book because you can please read on your smart phone, or gadget, so you can read the book throughout anywhere and anytime. In a situation you wish to purchase the e-book, you can available their official web-site along with order it. Have a nice study.

Barbara Roundtree:

Do you like reading a book? Confuse to looking for your preferred book? Or your book has been rare? Why so many issue for the book? But any kind of people feel that they enjoy to get reading. Some people likes studying, not only science book but in addition novel and The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love or maybe others sources were given knowledge for you. After you know how the good a book, you feel desire to read more and more. Science book was created for teacher as well as students especially. Those books are helping them to add their knowledge. In additional case, beside science publication, any other book likes The New American Backyard : Easy, Organic Techniques and Solutions for a Landscape You'll Love to make your spare time more colorful. Many types of book like here.