Book: Window Boxes January 30, 2009

Window Boxes – Stephanie Donaldson

Cost: Around £10.

The back cover describes this, amongst other things, as:

50 step-by-step planting projects for beautiful window boxes, with over 700 photographs

and for once I’d say the content matches the blurb. At a little short of 100 pages, this hard-back book gives the less experienced gardener a crash course in putting together a wide range of window boxes. Whether it’s for a country cottage or a city pad, there’s a bunch of ideas that will serve as a starting point to growing your own windox box.

It’s written in the style of a very simple cookbook, only the ingredients are plants and there no need to dig out a set of scales or convert metric to imperial measures. There’s a list of materials you’ll need, the plants that will be used then very simple instructions as to how to put it together, all accompanied by pictures of each step.

Why Books? January 27, 2009

There’s so much information on the web that it makes you wonder why anyone would buy books anymore. But while search engines are great, and following links from other trusted sources is helpful, there’s still a place for books.

With so much specialist help available for free on the net it seems a little surprising to spend money on books about window boxes. I think the main reason is that electronic advice consists of lots of fragments held across different websites and in a variety of places. Being able to sit down with a good book is, at times, much more satisfying and often gives quicker results. There’s also less opportunity to get distracted by minor points of difference between commentators opinions.

I say all this because I’ve surprised myself by starting a small gardening and window box book collection. I like books anyway so that part isn’t so strange, but I also use the web all the time and have found vast amounts of help online.