RHS How to Garden When You’re New to Gardening

Start Your Gardening Journey with Confidence 🌱

If you’ve ever looked at a bare patch of earth and wondered where to begin, RHS How to Garden When You’re New to Gardening is the friendly, authoritative guide you need. Written by the Royal Horticultural Society and published by Dorling Kindersley, this book assumes no prior knowledge and leads you gently through every step of creating a garden you can enjoy all year round.

What You’ll Find Inside

The book is organized into clear, practical chapters, each focusing on a key area of gardening:

• Getting Started: Assess your garden’s aspect, understand your soil, improve it, and choose healthy plants.
• Flowers & Foliage: Sow seeds indoors and out, plant up containers, make hanging baskets, and create colorful borders.
• Lawns: Lay turf, sow grass seed, create edging, and keep your lawn looking its best.
• Climbers, Shrubs, Grasses & Small Trees: Plant, prune, and train a wide range of structural plants, from roses and wisteria to topiary and ornamental grasses.
• Vegetables, Herbs & Fruit: Grow your own salads, tomatoes, beans, root crops, herbs, strawberries, and even apples in pots.
• Practicalities: Watering, composting, pruning, tool care, and troubleshooting pests, weeds, and diseases.

Learn by Doing

Dozens of step-by-step projects turn theory into practice. You’ll find instructions for making a tower of climbers, planting a shady windowbox, building a rose arch, growing potatoes in a bin, and creating a lavender hedge. Each project is illustrated and explained with the clarity DK is known for, so you can tackle new skills with confidence.

For Gardens of Every Size

Whether you have a small balcony, a courtyard, or a first family garden, the advice is adaptable. The book emphasizes making the most of the space you have, with ideas for containers, raised beds, and vertical growing. It also helps you choose plants that will thrive in your specific conditions, saving time and disappointment.

Your Go-To Reference 🌿

More than just a beginner’s primer, this is a book you’ll return to season after season. The Royal Horticultural Society’s trusted expertise, combined with Dorling Kindersley’s clear layout and photography, makes it an essential addition to any new gardener’s shelf. Start with a single pot or a whole border—this guide will help you grow with confidence.