The Ornamental Kitchen Garden

This book offers a practical guide to a new style of gardening. In fact, it is not a new style but a return to traditional methods - found in gardens all over the world from medieval monasteries to Victorian kitchen gardens - when fruit, flowers and vegetables were planted in the same beds in a delightful and productive mix. Not only does this sort of garden look good and provide constant variety all year round, but it is ideally suited to small gardens as well as large. It attracts plenty of wildlife - especially birds and insects - which helps to keep pests under control, while the different species growing side by side make the most of the soil. Geoff Hamilton, BBC TV's popular gardening expert and the presenter of "The Ornamental Kitchen Garden" television series on which the book is based, tells you everything you need to know to create an ornamental kitchen garden from scratch, or to transform an existing garden. He explains, with the help of drawings, how to plan your garden with paths, beds, patio and garden pool. Using step-by-step photos and easy-to-follow drawings, he shows how to make all the essential components: brick and scree paths, arbours and pergolas, cold frames, cloches and compost bins, as well as how to lay lawns. He gives detailed descriptions of the decorative plants - perennials and annuals, bulbs and herbs, climbers, vegetables, ornamental trees and shrubs, fruit trees and bushes - some old favourties and some the latest varieties - which would be most suitable for this sort of garden, explaining how to cultivate them and to propagate further plants. A chapter on the seasons has colour photographs for the months of spring, summer and autumn illustrating many of the plants flowering or fruiting at the time, accompanied by month-by-month reminders of jobs to be done.