Small Space Gardening Book

Bait and switch.

There is nothing "small" about the gardens in this book. Most of the layouts are larger than my house. I choose to be charitable, which is why the two-stars, since it is just possible that the small spaces referred to throughout are smaller spaces carved out of the family estate. Also, there was nothing original or useful here: create a small tree by buying a shrub grafted onto the stem of a standard; create drifts of plants rather than one of each. What is most frustrating about advice like this is it doesn't tell you what to do when you don't have enough room to plant more than four or five plants in a garden (one of my realities of a small garden space), and you already have a ceiling to your garden granted from the neighbors' yards, and so do not need a tree shaped forsythia to provide structure.

In all, this book was diffuse and unhelpful at most levels. It is clearly aimed at the beginning gardener, and I can't hold that against it, but I am dismayed that there was no effort to provide realistic small garden tips anywhere in the book.