Does your gardening interest, perhaps go deeper?

It really is good to meet fellow gardeners on forums like this. To share information relating to, what we have grown, purchased etc. Might we perhaps share our deeper interests in gardening, horticulture, botany etc. Do we study plants very much. Have we got many books etc on the subject.
I feel sure that we can brighten up the forum a bitmore and get away from the dismal covid-19 stuff. Just a thought.

 

That's a reasonable idea Mike, but that should be placed in a different section?!
This is after all the "off topic" forum.
Botany and horticulture are serious garden related and would that not be appropriate in say, Garden discussions or General forums?
Or if not, then maybe a new forum could be created for the more in depth interest.

 

Well, what about starting a "Favourite Gardening Books" thread, Mike? I haven't seen one on the forum. Haven't got time to initiate it, but would certainly contribute and it would be an interesting read!

Nick

 

I dont actually buy books anymore, used to and still have quite a lot but rarely read them these days.
Its usually faster to find info that you want on the internet.
Problem I find with books is you get basically a single persons view, and often they are written without personal experience, just quoting what has gone before.

Maybe I used to buy the wrong books.

 

Sometimes in the depths of winter i find it quite nice to get out a favourite gardening book.
Reading the text, and gazing at good photography can be a welcome diversion to dark, grey and wet days.
I too don't buy many these days but I've got some that i wouldn't part with..

 

@pete I think they're great when you're a beginner/clueless gardener (like the Hessayon books) and also good when you get a little more advanced and want to explore plants from a particular aspect, like studying native British plants or gardening to attract wildlife (the only two books I use daily pertain to these subjects). Sometimes I like to just read books to research types of plants which I'll never grow but am still interested in, a good example would be Adrian Bloom's "Conifers For Your Garden". I'll probably never have the space to experiment with conifers and heathers like he did but it's nice to garden vicariously through him! But yes. I think forums are always better because you can't ask a book questions, especially with horticulture because it's so site-specific!

Nick

 

@Nikolaos , yes when just starting out there are lots of interesting books, I've still got some going back to the late 70s.
I also bought books on cacti, trees, veg growing, even tropical veg that I don't think I'll ever be able to grow, and tropical fruit and trees.

I've always found plants interesting and always like the out of the ordinary stuff.

But I must admit, because of that I've often missed out on some of the "ordinary" stuff that really I shouldn't have overlooked.

 

Before, it's just something I do...but now, I feel like learning to grow fruits and vegetables is something very important. Having something to eat when you can't go buy food is neat.