Sustainable Gardens

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CSIRO Publishing Gardening Guides By: Rob Cross, Roger Spencer

eBook - January 2009 - eRetailers

A handbook showing how to design, construct and maintain gardens to minimise their environmental impact.

The third title in the CSIRO Gardening Guide series, Sustainable Gardens by Roger Spencer and Rob Cross shows how horticulture can contribute towards a more sustainable future. Written for home gardeners, professional horticulturists, landscapers, and all those passionate about cultivated landscapes, this book examines the steps we can take towards harmonising gardening activity with the cycles of nature. + Full description

Two outstanding botanists from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, Roger and Rob have produced a genuine gardening bible for our times. They show how every gardener – both professional and amateur – can contribute positively to environmental stewardship. Gardens may be consumers of resources, but the negative effects of this consumption can be minimised and can be offset by some of the positive contributions gardens make.

Roger and Rob explain the connections between human activity, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. They show how to conduct an audit of gardening practices, materials, and results so that every gardener can measure the impact he or she is having on nature.

They show: how to minimise the impacts on nature of our consumption of water, materials and energy in the garden; how to make gardens more environmentally friendly through design, construction and maintenance phases; the importance of biodiversity and how horticulture can help protect natural systems; and the role that gardening can play in alleviating the environmental impacts of food production.

Checklists are provided so that gardeners can ensure they are taking the most sustainable path through each phase of gardening – design, construction, maintenance. The book ends with a guide round an existing garden that combines physical beauty with sustainability, and discusses future trends for sustainable horticulture.

In an increasingly urbanised world, parks and gardens are our main point of contact with nature. If we can maximise the environmental benefits of our gardens, public spaces and landscapes, we will make a huge contribution to sustainable living. This book if the first to show us how.

- Short description

News

This title is no longer available in print, but can still be purchased in eBook format via the eRetailer links above.

Reviews

"…the book is set out in an inviting manner with many graphs, tables, illustrations and photographs…it will be a useful resource to support the Year of Learning for Sustainability in 2010."
Scan (NSW Department of Education and Training), Vol. 28, No. 4, November 2009

"Thoroughly enjoyable."
Stephen Williams, The Herald, Monday October 26, 2009

"In short, it’s a book for people who want to know why it’s important to reassess the way we garden rather than simply doing what we’ve always done."
Josh Byrne, Gardening Australia, August 2009

"This book concentrates on the ideal of sustainability and how we can incorporate it into our everyday gardening habits. It’s not a picture book to flick through, skimming over the text in a casual way. Rather it should be treated as a serious manual to consult as you shape your garden."
Your Garden, Spring 2009

"If you're serious about taking a more environmentally responsible approach to gardening, then Sustainable Gardens, penned by botanists Roger Spencer and Rob Cross, is a worthy reference source."
Backyard & Garden Design Ideas, July 2009

"This book will have an impact on any gardeners concerned about our precious planet. As well it should be in schools and every municipal library."
Alex Smart, Friends of Tolern Creek, May, 2009

"It is very good at explaining the big picture, then detailing how this relates to the microcosm of our own gardens."
The Australian, 5 May 2009

Details

ePDF | January 2009
ISBN: 9780643097988
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Available from eRetailers

ePUB | January 2009
ISBN: 9780643099630
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Available from eRetailers

Features

Presents information in a non-technical format
Synthesises sustainability issues, information, language, facts and figures that are currently widely dispersed through a range of media and difficult to access
Provides a context to the many ways in which we can manage our parks and gardens in a way that contributes to sustainable living
Considers ways to think sustainably when designing, constructing and maintaining gardens and landscapes
Discusses and quantifies the ways that the garden ecosystem integrates with the biological, chemical and physical cycles and processes of the biosphere

Authors

Roger Spencer (BSc (Hons.), MSc, PhD, Cert, Gard.) has worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne for over 30 years. He is Senior Horticultural Botanist and has written many popular and scientific articles on horticultural topics including books on Elms, Grey and Silver Foliage Plants, Plant Names and, most recently, the 5-volume Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. He began his scientific career as a member of a research team studying the ecology of Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne.

Rob Cross (BSc, BAppSci. (Hort)) is passionate about plants, their use and their conservation. Rob is a horticultural botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne where he works on the conservation and horticultural development of Australian plants, and has previously worked in the landscape design, garden maintenance and nursery areas of horticulture. Rob has written scientific papers, books on Japanese Flowering Cherries and Plant Names, and contributed to other horticultural books.