Texas Gardening the Natural Way: The Complete Handbook

By Howard Garrett

Book Overview

Compost your old "complete" gardening guide. There's a new way of gardening in Texas that's healthier for people and the environment, more effective at growing vigorous plants and reducing pests, cheaper to maintain, and just more fun. It's Howard Garrett's "The Natural Way" organic gardening program, and it's all here in Texas Gardening the Natural Way.

This book is the first complete, state-of-the-art organic gardening handbook for Texas. Using Howard Garrett's new mainstream gardening techniques, Texas Gardening the Natural Way presents a total gardening program:

How to plan, plant, and maintain beautiful landscapes without using chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides.Gardening fundamentals: soils, landscape design, planting techniques, and maintenance practices.Includes more native and adaptable varieties of garden and landscape plants than any other guide on the market.Trees: 134 species of evergreens, berry- and fruit-bearing, flowering, yellow fall color, orange fall color, and red fall color.Shrubs and specialty plants: 85 species for sun, shade, spring flowering, summer flowering, and treeform shrubs.Ground covers and vines: 51 species for sun and shade.Annuals and perennials: 136 species for fall color, winter color, summer color in shade and sun, and spring color. Also seeding rates for wildflowers.Lawn grasses: 10 species for sun and shade, with additional information on 16 native grasses, seeding rates for 32 grasses, and suggested mowing heights.Fruits, nuts, and vegetables: 58 species, with a vegetable planting chart and information on organic pecan and fruit tree growing, fruit varieties for Texas, grape and pecan varieties, and gardening by the moon.Common green manure crops: 29 crops that help enrich the soil.Herbs: 66 species for culinary and medicinal uses.Bugs: 73 types of helpful and harmful bugs, with organic remedies for pests, lists of beneficial bugs and plants that attract them, a beneficial bug release schedule, and sources for beneficial bugs.Plant diseases: organic treatments for 55 common problems.Organic methods for repelling mice, rabbits, armadillos, beavers, cats, squirrels, and deer.Organic management practices: watering, fertilizing, controlling weeds, releasing beneficial insects, biological controls (including bats and purple martins), and recipes for Garrett Juice, fire ant control drench, vinegar herbicide, Sick Tree Treatment, and Tree Trunk Goop.Average first and last freeze dates for locations around the state.Organic fertilizers and soil amendments: 61 varieties, including full instructions for making compost.Organic pest control products: 30 varieties.Common house plants and poisonous plants.Instructions for climbing vegetable structures and bat houses.833 gorgeous full-color photographs.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1477310231
• ISBN13: 9781477310236
• Release Date: February 2016
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 4.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 8.8" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

One of my favorite books!!!

Bottom line is, I Love This Book! I am constantly looking at it time after time for information, or just for fun. If you live in Texas, put this book in your collection. It has tons of valuable information on most of the good stuff we can grow successfully. I like Howard Garrrett's whole approach to gardening without chemicals. This is definitely one of my favorite books.

My favorite new book

This book is very beneficial to all of you Texas gardeners out there. Especially first time Texas gardeners like me. There are a lot of pictures of the variety of trees, plants, grasses, etc that grow well in the different regions of Texas. The descriptions tell you what is good/bad about each species. I recommend to anyone who is starting their own garden, and a great resource to go back to once the garden is established-resource on how to manage bugs, etc.

The Total Package!

If you live in Texas and want to garden organically....this is THE book for you. I have been gardening (as organically as possible) for decades, and found tons of information in this very thorough tome. LOVED IT!

Texas Gardening the Natural Way: The Complete Handbook by Howard Garrett

This book is an excellent source for anyone wanting to start from scratch on gardening. I am a very visual person, and the pictures of plants and illustrations on how to plant make this book excellent! The book I got is hard-back so I know it will last a long time!

What you need to know to garden in Texas

It's a great book as it covers subjects from planting, caring for, and choosing which plants will do well. The book also covers Texas' bugs (which we have plenty of) and pest control. Garrett is my gardening guru in Texas...but if you have his previous books, then this will look like a review.