A welcoming book packed with tried-and-tested techniques for those who aspire to garden hand in hand with nature.
Good gardeners watch, listen, and learn throughout their life. Another important asset is to share, and author Val Bourne is generous in this respect. Her delightful yet powerful book is designed to encourage us all to garden without chemicals, and the many personal stories and experiences within win the reader over and reassure that Bourne’s gardening know-how can be trusted.
Relevant photographs have been chosen to illustrate her valuable points. The quotes and headlines are inviting, drawing you in to read the entire chapter. The chapter on the author’s top 100 plants for an eco-friendly garden is particularly good, while the The Flying Squad highlights the contribution that insects – not just the honey bee, and including the much-maligned common wasp – have to play in our gardens.
Bourne brilliantly describes the connection between all garden visitors and how they interact seamlessly in her Cotswold garden. She makes you think again about those so often labelled as ‘enemies’. Before you next put your boot over a slug, consider that one of them might be a very valuable recycler.
Since the age of three Bourne has been an avid insect watcher and gardener. She understands that gardening is not a five-minute wonder. Creating a garden can take decades and Bourne makes no apology for this. This makes the book very relevant to those just starting to garden and to those who want to become organic and make their garden a haven for wildlife.
I recommended this book to anyone who wants to look more closely at their garden and to study for themselves the essential part that insects, birds, small animals and plants play in the creation of their personal paradise.