The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden: Review and Giveaway

If you've every looked at your front yard with a sigh of dismay and thought to yourself, "I don't even know where to begin," this book's for you.

Landscaping the front of your house can be intimidating. If you live on a busy street corner like I do, your successes, and to a more troubling degree, your failures are out front for all the world to see.
Gardening itself can seem like a mysterious business that demands skill and a knowledge of plants.
But what if you don't know a lot about gardening? Where do you even begin to choose plants, trees and shrubs? And let's not forget all the work involved in creating a front garden! Looking at a vast expanse of nondescript lawn, reworking it into a appealing garden can seem like a very daunting, labor intensive task.

From The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden by Sally Roth. Photography by Matt Bartmann © 2017 Published by Timber Press. 

Excerpted with the permission of the publisher.  

The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden breaks what seems like a huge task into smaller, more manageable projects. Rather than feeling over whelmed by the prospect of landscaping the entire yard, each of the book's chapters focuses on one specific area; the entrance to your home, the tree in the middle of the lawn, the corner of your lot, and so on, through a total of ten projects. As well as improving the curb appeal of your home overall, a few of the chapters address common front yard challenges; disguising eyesores like a utility poles, electrical boxes or fire hydrants and addressing a shady area at the base of a large yard tree. 

This practical, common-sense approach grew out of personal experience. One Christmas author Sally Roth and her photographer-husband Matt Bartmann presented a plan to Matt's father and step-mother to makeover their front garden as a gift. With limited time and budget, Sally and Matt focused on one small, specific area at a time. With each chapter, the book follows the transformation and showcases other possible interpretations of same project.

From The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden by Sally Roth. Photography by Matt Bartmann © 2017 Published by Timber Press. 

Excerpted with the permission of the publisher.  

Every one of the ten projects is accompanied with inspirational photographs of similar gardens and an illustrated plan complete with a list of plants. Throughout the book there are helpful tips, plant lists and suggestions to help you save time and money. There is even a fun quiz to help you identify your gardening style.

If you are concerned that landscaping a front yard in such a piecemeal fashion will result in a garden that doesn't work as a whole, don't worry. The author guides you through the process of pulling cues from one completed project and applying them to the next.

From The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden by Sally Roth. Photography by Matt Bartmann © 2017 Published by Timber Press. 

Excerpted with the permission of the publisher.  

From The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden by Sally Roth. Photography by Matt Bartmann © 2017 Published by Timber Press. 

Excerpted with the permission of the publisher.  

From The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden by Sally Roth. Photography by Matt Bartmann © 2017 Published by Timber Press. 

Excerpted with the permission of the publisher.  

Grand gardens and glamorous closeups of flowers are beautiful, but they don't relay much useful information to a suburban homeowner. The photographs in this book beauitiful but practical at the same time. You're going to able to look at the sample front gardens and identify with them. You'll find yourself thinking, "That's nice. I could do that."

In a nutshell, The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden is a great confidence booster. It's going to show step by step how to make your front garden look terrific. As Sally writes,"Your eye is the best gauge of your design. Give it credit and listen to what it's telling you."

Thomas Allen & Sons has kindly given me a copy of The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden to give away. Because this book will go to a winner through the mail, I will have to limit entry in the draw to readers in Canada and the USA. 

Please leave a comment below, if you would like to be included in the book draw. The draw will remain open for the until May 14th. If you are not a blogger, you can enter to win by leaving a comment on the Three Dogs in a Garden Facebook page. You are also welcome to enter by sending me an email (jenc_art@hotmail.com).

About the Author:

Sally Roth is the author of numerous gardening books. She is a former contributing editor of Fine Gardening magazine and a contributing editor of Birds and Blooms magazine. She has provided designs and consultant services for everything from rooftop city gardens to bird-friendly backyards throughout the USA. She lives with her husband Matt Bartmann in the high rocky mountains of Colorado. Visit the author's website. Find The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden on Amazon.