Gardens for All Seasons is a gardening lifestyle book by bestselling author Mary Horsfall, celebrating the role of gardens in our lives and advising on the timing of jobs in the gardening year throughout Australia.
Monthly chapters include topics such as planning, bushfire preparation, watering, pot plant care, mulching, weeding, fertilising, pruning, propagating, pest control, what to plant for different climate zones and what garden venues and events to visit.
Mary details her own gardening year, including jobs done, fruits and vegetables harvested, food cooked based on the harvest, what was in flower and wildlife observations – all on a month by month basis. Each chapter includes a special topic of the month, such as fun for kids in the garden, biodiversity, manipulating microclimate, and fragrance and first aid.
Covering both edible and decorative gardens, and including colour photographs as well as some of Mary’s own recipes, Gardens for All Seasons is sure to please all types of gardeners.
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Birthday flower is the carnation, signifying bonds of affection, health, energy, fascination. For those interested in the finer nuances of the language of flowers, different colours have different meanings: pink, I’ll never forget you; red, my heart aches for you or admiration; a solid colour, yes; striped, no; white, innocence or pure love; yellow, rejection or disdain.
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Flower of the month is the violet, which includes our native violet, Viola hederacea. In the language of flowers, violets signify modesty and calm and induce sleep. Blue violets signify watchfulness and fidelity and white violets mean taking a chance on happiness
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Birthday flower is lily-of-the-valley, which can mean sweetness, humility or a return to happiness.
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Birthday flower is the rose, which signifies love. The rose is so associated with traditional symbolism that various colours, flower forms and numbers have different connotations. A red rose, for example, means I love you, while a white one means eternal love or innocence. Red and white together signifies unity. A red bud means pure and lovely, whereas a white bud signifies girlhood. Cabbage roses, tea roses, rose leaves, whether the flower is single or in a bunch – all have different meanings, but all are relevant to the general theme of love.
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Birthday flower can be either the larkspur or the waterlily. Larkspur signifies laughter, light-heartedness and levity and waterlily means purity of heart.
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Birthday flower is the cosmos, signifying peace, wholeness and modesty. It is traditionally a flower associated with the second wedding anniversary.
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Birthday flower is the chrysanthemum, generally signifying cheerfulness and friendship. However, different colours have different meanings: red is love, yellow is slighted love and white is truth.
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Birthday flower is the narcissus, which has the varying and contradictory meanings of egotism, formality and stay as sweet as you are.
