The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden: 326 Fast, Easy, Affordable Ways to Transform Your Yard One Project at a Time

by Sally Roth

Overview

“Learn how to spend fewer hours and less money on revamping the garden.” —The English Garden

The prospect of revamping your yard can be daunting. Where do you start? How do all the areas come together in a beautiful, cohesive way? In The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Garden, Sally Roth simplifies the process by showing you how to spend fewer hours (and a minimal amount of money) in the garden by tackling one small area at a time. You’ll find garden plans for ten unique areas—the entryway, the shady areas under trees, and more—that can be linked together over time to create a unified yard, and plants that are dependable, easy to find, and look good year after year. You’ll also learn the basics of good design, which plants offer the most bloom for your buck, and how to avoid the most common planting mistakes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604697803
Publisher:	Timber Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	285
File size:	94 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Sally Roth is an award-winning author of more than 20 popular books about gardening, nature, and birds, including the best-selling Backyard Bird Feeder's Bible. Roth is also a contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. She and her husband share their home in the high Rockies with a variety of animals. You can visit her website at sallyroth.com.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction: A Lifetime of Learning
I learned how to garden at my mother’s knee—literally.

“I’m going outside for a while,” she’d announce, and I’d follow along, hurrying to get my little red wagon, so I could help haul plants or weeds or rocks.

Her gardens were gorgeous. And ever changing, as she transplanted things a few inches left or right, or all the way across the yard. I can still see her standing back, squinting, to check the look of what she was creating. 

“Needs more yellow, right there,” she’d say, pointing. Then she’d reach for the shovel to move a blooming clump of coreopsis daisies then and there. Every year, her flower beds got bigger, and the lawn got smaller. Meanwhile, I absorbed the art of gardening, and the how-tos of transplanting, dividing, and otherwise making more of a good thing.

Garden centers were almost unheard of back then, so Mom got most of her plants from friends and neighbors. Oh, you could send away for plants through the mail, but that cost money, and Mom was a penny-pincher. Having gone through the Great Depression, she never took money for granted. 

Sixty years later, I still remember which precious plants she had sent away for, because those words became part of their name: “The smokebush I sent away for.” “The ‘Peace’ rose I sent away for.” “The climbing ‘Don Juan’ [rose] I sent away for.” That was the grand total, until I grew up and visiting the garden centers and nurseries then springing up all over became a weekly outing for Mom and me.

Every summer, my mom broke off a spray of her beloved smokebush to put in the old white ironstone pitcher. “Smell,” she’d urge me. “Doesn’t it smell good?” I can still conjure the distinctive scent.

Some plants were growing around the hundred-year-old house when my parents bought it in the 1930s, like peonies, old “lemon lily” daylilies (Hemerocallis flava), lily-of-the-valley, and a few pink “live forever” sedums. And Mom made more of those plants, as well as plants she’d received from friends, saving seeds, slicing off starts, and rooting cuttings. She managed to plant our whole acre with lush gardens that probably cost her a total of $100 over the decades.

My mom was a big fan of native plants, which were called wildflowers in her day. All natives are beautiful, but some are too understated to stand out. Black-eyed Susans, here with native blue California phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), make a conspicuous splash.

It was a gardening education, but I didn’t realize that until I left home and started my own garden. Then I was the one talking the leg off anyone who stopped to admire what I was doing. “The hollyhocks? Those came from Mom’s yard—she always called them ‘outhouse flowers,’” I’d say, laughing. “See these babies? The big ones seed themselves! Here, let me dig you a few.

“And those are the columbines I started from Katie’s seeds. Hers were pink and white, but some of mine came out dark purple! Don’t you love that color?” 

Then I’d stand back and squint at the bed. “Needs more yellow...”
 

Table of Contents

A Lifetime of Learning 8

A Building Block Garden Primer 17

Twelve Easy Small Gardens: First Impressions at the Lamppost 56

A Welcome Garden At the Entrance 72

A Pretty Frame At the Corners 86

Dress up a Tree Shady Spots 102

Between Neighbors Private or Pretty? 118

Cheerful Color In the Lawn 132

An Ever-Expanding Garden Extending the Edges 146

A Beckoning Bench Gathering Places and Sitting Spots 159

Sidewalk Slip Creating Curb Appeal 176

Lots of Pots a Can't-Miss Container Garden 192

Artist's Canvas Gardening on Slopes 209

Now You See it, Now You Don't Dealing with Eyesores 224

Gardening Secrets Top Ten Ways to Save Time and Money 236

Resources 255

Further Reading 258

Photography Credits 260

Index 261

Editorial Reviews

Vivid pictures and landscape drawings offer inspiration, while bright textboxes offer tips for staying within a budget.” —The Gardener

“The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Garden divides the task into easily accomplished mini-projects. It shows you how to transform an outside space, bit by bit, whether it’s sprucing up an entrance or increasing curb appeal.” —Michigan Gardener

“For beginner gardeners who are looking to create a more eye-catching, beautiful growing space, this book could be a fantastic solution. . . . Plenty of ideas and inspiration to get your creative juices flowing on the plot.” —Grow Your Own Magazine

“If you’ve ever 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.” —Three Dogs in a Garden

“Although the title says this book is for novices, the ideas presented could be for anyone.” —Country Gardens​

“Focuses on how to spend fewer hours and spend less money on revamping the garden.” —The English Garden

“A beginners' garden book that really will help beginners.” —Buffalo Spree

From the Publisher