TIME LIFE BOOKS

Dear Pennsylvania Gardener:

Gardening is such a rewarding pastime and can add so much beauty to your home; but, despite all your efforts, sometimes your great expectations turn into dismal disappointments…

The perennial border in your backyard is supposed to be a vision of beauty, a miniature copy of the one you may have seen at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square. Instead, it’s untidy and overgrown. The delphiniums are growing too closely together and the color selections of your phloxes are just not harmonious. How much better it would be if you had solid, step-by-step advice on how to plan and control that border.

That beautiful African violet your daughter gave you for your birthday --- look at it now: wilted, straggly, limp, flowerless. But this will never again happen to your cherished house plants, once you know their special needs.

You love tomatoes, but hate the hard, tasteless little ones sold in boxes in the supermarkets. So last year you planted your own tomatoes --- but you were disappointed. Your plants didn’t seem to bear nearly as many tomatoes as your neighbor got with his.

You love that gracious old maple near the driveway. But you’re heartsick over the ugly barren spot beneath it where grass refuses to grow, no matter what you do. But there are attractive, inexpensive ground covers ideal for planting under shallow-rooted trees like maples, if only you know what to choose…

The Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS invite you to see for yourself how practical, how complete, how easy to follow, how breathtakingly beautiful this widely acclaimed gardening library really is. Here’s all you do:

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THE TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING is an invaluable Source of Practical Gardening Methods and Techniques

Where does your garden grow? Along the wooded byways of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Chadds Ford and Paoli? In beautiful Fox Chapel, Sewickley or burgeoning Coraopolls and Camp Hill? Along the wide, tree-lined streets of Stroudsburg, or Carlisle, with its row-upon-row of stately colonial homes? Near York, when May brings apple-blossom time? In picturesque Bucks County, with its rolling hills, early stone houses and handsome barns? In the rich soil of Lancaster County, with its abundance of limestone, or around historic Valley Forge?

Are you a new homeowner confronted for the first time with the challenge of creating a lawn? Choosing shade trees? Planning a garden? Or are you a veteran gardener seeking fresh ideas and new inspirations to suit your inevitably changing tastes and widening interests?

Are you eager for a yard brimful with a variety of blossoms from spring through fall? Do you yearn for the lushness of tropical flowers to brighten your home or city apartment through the cheerlessness of winter? Do you simply take pride in watching things grow and being surrounded by beauty?

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You’ll Find Hundreds of Tried-and-true Tips and Simple Tricks Like These in THE TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING:

• How to Get More Vegetables and Fruits out of a Small Garden --- You can get maximum yields by growing successive crops on the same patch of soil, using midget varieties, growing tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and squashes vertically, and using planters on terrace or patio for vegetables and dwarf fruit trees.
• Healthy Perennials --- The pH of your soil can spell the difference between success or failure. Perennials do best when the pH is around 6.5 (slightly acid) to 7.0 (neutral).
• Lawn Work Saver --- The simplest, surest way for you to get fertilizer onto as lawn in the right amount is to use an adjustable fertilizer spreader that can also perform double duty as a distributor for seeds, lime, sulphur, etc.
• Herbs --- to Look at, as Well as Use in Cooking --- To most people, herbs mean seasoning. But they can also be used to add accent to your flower beds, or as a complete decorative garden all by themselves.
• Bonsai --- the Art of Dwarfing --- The kind of tree to select (among the narrow-leaved evergreens, mugo pine, Sargent Juniper and Norway spruce lend themselves particularly well to bonsai training), and how to prune, pot, wire and groom.
• When Grass Isn’t the Answer ---Most ground-cover plants are better suited to steep slopes than grass which is difficult to mow in such locations; under certain circumstances they also control erosion better than grass because their leaves break the force of rain and their roots dig deeper to hold the soil.
• African Violets --- These popular indoor plants do best in bright, indirect or curtain-filtered sunlight, with night temperatures of 65o - 70^o and day temperatures of 70^o or higher. Soil should be barely moist at all times.
• A Way to Keep Your Tulips Blooming “Like New” for Years --- If you plant your tulips deeply (ten inches deep instead of usual five or six inches) they will produce beautiful large and uniform flowers for up to eight years.
• How to Increase Your Number of Rose Blooms --- Foliar feeding (a mixture of inorganic plant foods dissolved in water and sprayed on the leaves) is an easy and quick way to supplement midspring and midsummer fertilizer feedings, particularly if blossom production seems to lag.
• You Want a Nut Tree --- but Don’t Know Which One --- The Chinese chestnut and the black walnut are fast growing, bear nuts as early as two years after planting, cast useful shade within five or six years, and are relatively free of pests and diseases.
• Feeding Foliage House Plants --- They should be fed fertilizer infrequently --- no more than once every three to six month, and this schedule should begin no sooner than six months after the plant is purchased.

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Scores of “How-to” Illustrations that Instruct, Inspire and Illuminate

When it comes to acquiring a skill or mastering a new technique, one picture is often worth more than a thousand words. Here, for the first time, is an inexpensive, professionally illustrated gardening reference library that abounds with visual aids --- photographs, diagrams, paintings, drawings --- that will help you achieve the easy-to-care-for, beautiful garden you’ve always wanted. In addition, each volume contains specially commissioned maps and charts that break down the United States and Canada into zones that tell you what seeds, plants, trees and shrubs you can grow in your area, and when they should be planted. Here is a glimpse of what you will see in THE TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING:

It will show you how to get your landscape plan on paper, progressing from lot map to rough analysis and final plan.

You will find out how to start a lawn from scratch: grading, loosening soil, conditioning the soil, adding nutrients, preparing the bed, when to plant grass, what seed to use, sowing the seed, watering and mowing a new lawn.

It will show you four ways to dig holes for planting bulbs.

You will discover when and how to pot a plant --- the type of pot to use, drainage, improving the soil, easy potting techniques.

It will help you plan a food garden --- how much to plant, when to plant, distances apart for rows and seed, frost-resistance, days to germination, days to eating, when to harvest, nutrients in each.

You will learn how to properly prune roses --- with special techniques ,for teas, bush types, as well as climbing and tree roses.

You will discover how easy it is to make your own soil analysis.

You will see that there are two superior ways to water annuals and find out why early morning is the best time of day for watering them.

It will show you how to convert your leaves and other organic debris into clean, odorless, rich fertilizer with less effort and cost than it takes to stuff them into plastic bags for trash collection.

You will learn how to plant, prune, graft and train fruit trees.

You will find out how to identify and correct 12 simple lawn problems from fertilizer burn to slime mold; how to spot the 12 common pests that infect lawns and how to control them; how to diagnose 14 types of lawn disease and how to remedy them.

You will discover a technique called “disbudding” that will permit you to produce giant-sized chrysanthemums.

You will learn all about roses, including, where necessary, how to provide beds --- built-in watering for hot, dry locations and built-in drainage for wet locations.

It will show you some fascinating ways to use foliage house plants in decorating schemes and explain how you can grow plants using only artificial light.

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Add to All This, the Generous Use of Full-color Photographs and Plain-talking. No-nonsense Prose.

If you love flowers, plants and other growing things, you’ll find the photographs in THE TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING an endless source of pleasure and inspiration.

Whatever its subject, every single volume of THE TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING includes a special encyclopedic section of recommended species and varieties, created by the Editors and author James Underwood Crockett…

Perennials, Your Introductory Volume, Reflects the Utility, Breadth and Beauty of the Entire TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING.

In every way, Perennials, your introductory volume, exemplifies the comprehensiveness, practically, simplicity of presentation and colorful beauty of the complete TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING. Here is a preview of the kind of valuable information you will find in this volume:

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Accept our invitation to examine Perennials without obligation to buy for 10 days. Then, and only then, need you decide whether you wish to keep the book and become a subscriber to THE TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING.

If you do, we’ll bill you $5.95 plus shipping and handling for the introductory volume. Future books in the series will then come to you one at a time approximately every other month. You need never accept any book without first examining it for 10 days, without cost or obligation. No matter how many or how few you ultimately decide to keep, you pay only $5.95 plus shipping and handling for each volume. There is no minimum number you must buy, and you may cancel your subscription at any time simply by notifying us.

For now, though, take a leisurely 10-day look through Perennials. It costs you nothing to do so, and it is the best way of seeing for yourself how practical THE TIME-LIFE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDENING is to anyone who loves to garden… or wants to learn how. Use the postage-paid order card today!

Sincerely,
Joan D. Manley
Publisher