Wonderful book. Simple useful ideas for small gardens. If you're going "green" this book is for you. After taking this book out of the library and putting many post-it notes on the pages, I decided I had to have it!!
Review #2
No Problems - Excellent
The book arrived in a timely manor and was in great condition. No problems, I would buy again!
Review #3
...
This book has received a lot of mixed reviews, so I just wanted to say: I liked it.
It's true that it's not perfect. I find that few gardening books are universally ideal. This one is oriented towards sunny locations, and it has the flaw that many small-space gardening books have--the small-space seems to get bigger and bigger until it seems like we're talking about a fair-sized garden. Also, there are tons of personal details, really to excess. And one hears a great deal about the writer's current garden/shop/restaurant, much more than is interesting. Another reviewer suggested that perhaps it'd be more interesting if there were pictures of this place, and I agree, that might be a good idea.
Nevertheless, there were some great tips in here. Lanza takes the approach that you can be very ambitious even if you have a small garden, and that suits me very well. So she points out, for example, that climbing plants and vines are a great way to use every bit of space for spectacular effect. She also has lots of little suggestions; I found especially useful the idea of storing tools etc in tupperware/sweater boxes, tucked away. Also, her description of layering compost etc in the containers was useful to me.
It's true that little in this book is original, but then, originality is not usually the strength of gardening books. Somebody somewhere almost always knows the same techniques. It's a matter of presenting things in such a way that they are helpful to the reader.
I guess I would recommend trying to get this book from the library first--as I would with most gardening books. It has some great qualities, but it's not perfect, and it's worth making sure that it's useful to you personally before buying it.
