How I Garden: Easy ideas & inspiration for making beautiful gardens anywhere
by Adam Frost
BBC Books, £22
ISBN 978-1785947582
There are garden experts who invite you in and there are others who can overawe. Adam Frost is definitely in the former category and his genial, down-to-earth voice comes through in How I Garden just as it does when he presents on BBC Gardeners’ World.
Frost’s core belief, central to this book, is that your garden should make you happy, and with a healthy dose of realism he recommends us to ‘chase the fleeting moments rather than expect perfection on a big scale’. This is a personal account, featuring his own garden and family in the photographs and text, which brings together wisdom garnered over a lifetime in horticulture with practical advice, hands-on projects, and even some favourite recipes.
Frost’s core belief, central to this book, is that your garden should make you happy.
Chapters range from how to assess your site and develop your own style, through optimising small spaces, to how to choose and grow your plants.
Frost started work in the North Devon Parks department, aged 16, and went on to assist legendary
TV gardener Geoff Hamilton at Barnsdale, which made him an early adopter of organic, peat-free cultivation.
Building on that and moving with the times, as you would expect, he embraces contemporary thinking that junks some of the ‘rules’ (for example, planting in threes and fives) and advocates a looser, less controlled approach that chimes with today’s gardeners.
One of the undoubted benefits of experience is plant knowledge and Frost shares this generously here with lists of his many favourites. As a shortcut to getting good results, these are valuable starting points.
I particularly enjoyed the section on ornamental edibles, which introduced me to Japanese spikenard and lopsided onions.
Frost claims that gardening is one big experiment and How I Garden has a reassuringly supportive air that doesn’t assume any deep degree of prior knowledge. As he says, ‘Don’t be disheartened by small fails; there’s always next year.’