Practical Science For Gardeners [Paperback]

Informative and entertaining, this book will stimulate experimentation and encourage gardeners to review and improve their current gardening practices. Once gardeners learn how plants are constructed, it is easier to envision how they'll grow and flourish. An understanding of the structure behind good, healthy soil gives clues as to how to improve one's own garden tilth. This practical guide helps readers identify what plants need to survive and how these fundamental scientific facts are at the heart of good plant care. A chapter on seeds and germination will encourage gardeners at any level to try their hand at propagation, while discussion of soil, pests, and diseases adds to the skills of all gardeners. The final sections of the book take a closer look at biodiversity, ecology, genetic engineering, and nomenclature. For the enthusiastic beginner or the master gardener,Practical Science for Gardenersunravels the mysterious inner life of plants.

This book is only available through print on demand. All interior art is black and white. 

Mary Pratt graduated in zoology from Oxford University and went on to gain a Master's degree in biology at Keele University. She lectured on adult education programs and worked in nature conservation, including a stint for the Wildlife Trusts. More recently she taught biology at secondary school level before retiring to Devon with her musician husband.

Nature's arms race and how to negotiate a peace deal

Neither 'mother nature' nor 'nature red in tooth and claw' are really appropriate epithets for the non-human world. 'Nature's arms race', in which gardeners and farmers become intimately involved, is nearer to the mark. I suppose motherly qualities come to mind because allournutritional needs have ultimately been met from wild plants and animals. But nature is not in the least motherly to its own offspring. Out there, be it in wildernlƒ)