A Garden of Possibilities

All I can say is…I wish I had this book sooner!

As I was reading What’s Wrong with my Plant (And How Do I Fix It?) by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, I kept thinking – I wish  had this book last summer.  I really could have used it to diagnose and treat the sawfly infestation on my redtwig dogwood, the fungal infection that haunted my astilbes all spring and summer and of course the wierd infestation (still not sure if it was fungus or insect) that resulted in me removing  two of my lilacs in order to save my favorite Miss Kim lilac.

 

The funny thing is so often last spring and summer, I found myself wondering if there was a book like What’s Wrong With My Plant? out there somewhere.  Like most gardeners, I consider myself very hands-on and like to try to fix problems in my garden myself.  I’ll do research and try to find answers and if all else fails, I’ll seek out a local expert for help.  What’s Wrong With My Plant? allows me to have experts sitting on my book shelf just waiting to help.

 

The book is a combination of drawings, photos and easy-to understand advice on how to help your plants.  Part 1, What’s Wrong?, is a series of flow charts that help you begin to diagnose what’s wrong with your plant.  Simply find the section that deals with your plant’s problem – leaf spots, discolored flowers, funky stuff on stems and on and on – and answer yes or no.  There are lots of colored drawings to illustrate what you might be experiencing in your garden.  Once you know what you’re dealing, you are directed to a page in Part 2.

 

Part 2, How Do I Fix It?,  offers natural solutions and organic remedies to all the problems identified in Part 1.  Not only do you learn how to fix the problem, you learn why the solution works, possible side-effects and how to use the solution in your garden. I always enjoy a book that assumes the reader is smart enough to understand the why behind the answer.

 

Part 3, What Does It Look Like?, is a photo gallery of real-life plants suffering from the problems diagnosed in Part 1.   While the drawings in Part 1 are informative, color photos add to your confidence that you’ve diagnosed the problem correctly.

 

What’s Wrong with My Plant?  is one book that every gardener needs to own, now.  Don’t wait until you need it, buy it now so you’ll have experts waiting on your book shelf to help you too.  Because, let’s face it, if you haven’t asked yourself  ’what’s wrong with that plant’ yet, you will one day.