An Ear to the Ground: Garden Science for Ordinary Mortals - Hardcover

anical knowledge is a good thing.

Do you have any idea what is actually going on in your garden? While the British are happy to call themselves a nation of gardeners, they rarely have any idea of the science that is happening before their very eyes. How did plants get to be the way they are? Why do they have pretty flowers? How different would things have been if the wrong kind of pollinators had got the upper-hand? Why are Latin names so complicated, and why Latin anyway? Why is a weed-free lawn an ecological impossibility?

This entertaining book by a keen gardener, who also happens to teach Animal and Plant Sciences at a British university, gives the answers to these questions and many more. It shows how a little botanical knowledge can bring not just better results but peace of mind, and that losing sleep over such traditional gardening bogeys as weeds, pests and pruning is not necessarily the best course. Indeed, if Ken Thompson’s message can be summed up in one wor

Ken Thompson is a plant ecologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield. He writes regularly on the science of gardening for Organic Gardening magazine.