A Starter Garden: The Guide for the Horticulturally Hapless

by Cheryl Merser

Covers the basics of ornamental gardening, from what tools to buy and how to plant shrubs, perennials, herbs, annuals, and roses, to finishing touches and year-round maintenance

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Reference

272 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 1994

Reviews

[Pierre Kahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book and my reasons have very little to go with gardening, although that's why I bought it. For several years now, I take it off the shelf around Memorial Day. It helps to mark the beginning of summer - a bit late to get active in the garden, but around the time that the I feel myself slowing down and lightening up in a way that seems impossible any other time of the year. Reading Cheryl Merser is like sitting down in the garden with a cup a coffee and a good friend who's a lot of fun to be around. One criticism is that there is very little imagery to help out with everything she describes, be it her garden or plants. A couple of years ago, I photocopied the small diagram of her garden towards the beginning of the book and made a book mark out of it so I could refer to it more easily. But even so, her book simply brightens my mood. And often after I've read a bit I'll head into the garden to work, feeling that friend is still at my side. I can't say that its turned me into much of a gardener though. For one thing, I still can't visualize the bushes and shrubs that give a garden structure - one of the basics covered in the book. Back, mid and front border are a bit easier - but just as often as not, something I plant doesn't thrive. It doesn't die, it just doesn't flourish. And gardening is so much more about maintenance than planting which I don't do regularly enough. Cheryl's garden was two years in the making when she wrote A Starter Garden - must be amazing by now. I've been going back to her book for a lot longer than that and my garden is - less than spectacular. But I plan to keep coming back to it and maybe one day my garden will be have grown into something more than a starter garden. But I won't outgrow the book.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this felt like having afternoon tea in an ornamental garden in late Spring, which was excellent in a cold and muddy March. I loved the author's clear love of plants and the down-to-earth conversational tone, and she covers a lot of basics of garden care and design very well. The glossary to mentioned plants in the back seemed very useful, too. Nine-year-old me who had nearly memorized The Secret Garden was delighted.

It is, however, definitely aimed 100% at decorative gardens, not kitchen gardens. Specifically it's aimed at middle-class white women in Long Island in the 1990s who have a lot of time on their hands, and the kinds of decorative gardens they might grow.
Which is not a dis-recommendation! But it does limit the scope.

Also, with nary a mention of the conservation issues, she suggests growing, among similar plants, Japanese honeysuckle, bamboo, and purple loosestrife. Which sort of made me want to burn the thing and then sprinkle salt and holy water on the ashes.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Starter Garden: The Guide for the Horticulturally Hapless by Cheryl Merser (Harper Perennial 1994)(635.9) was written by a new gardener and covered (only) two years in a brand new quarter-acre (!) garden. I'm pretty sure that this garden plan exploded when the third spring rolled around and the plants leapt at the author. She also imparts some mighty odd information, but hey, whatever works for you. My rating: 5/10 (I really liked the author's prose), finished 5/5/12.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading like a little novel, this book was so fun! Cheryl made me laugh all the way along as she taught all us beginners what NOT to do (as well as what TO do) when while we learn to garden. I'm reading it again in the fall. WARNING: if you don't like to garden, you won't like Cheryl's book at all!!!

[Meggityb · Rating 5 out of 5]

That's the date I read this book from cover to cover. I use it all the time as a gardening reference. This book turned me into a gardener.

[Brainorgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Starter Garden: The Guide for the Horticulturally Hapless by Cheryl Merser (1994)