With its question/answer format and a blending of information gleaned from over a decade of New York Time's gardening column, The New York Times 1000 Gardening Questions And Answers: Based On The Column "Gardeners Q. & A" gathers the questions of avid gardeners and the experiences and advice of gardening professionals under one cover. Add a chatty tone to their answers, which goes into more than just a few lines of detail, and an organization by type of plant, and you have a title which lends to leisure browsing as much as reference.

"In the hands of Linda Ching the camera is a delicate paintbrush. The images she has created to tell the tale of "Story of the Stone" summons the senses--like delicate water paintings, opalescent colors emerge. In silky browns and beiges she arouses ecstatic figures; a wistful woman is caught in a gossamer mirror; a twig soars alone, overlaid in sunlit leaves. A fresh new look at an old Chinese masterpiece." -- Moana Tregaskis

An excellent guide to city gardening...enough so that someone like me (not a green thumb) could begin to serously consider what to plant and how to plant it in my New York City back yard.

The "Two Women of China" of this novel's subtitle are one and the same: Mulberry is a Chinese woman who has witnessed the major upheavals of twentieth-century China before fleeing to the United States in the 1960s, while the defiant, "Americanized" Peach is her "liberated" alterego borne of a traumatic past.

Nieh presents Mulberry/Peach's story in four sections. In the first part, while China is suffering from the final attacks of the Japanese invaders at the end of World War II, Mulberry is a teenage runaway stranded with other refugees on a boat caught in the rapids of the Yangtse River. A few years later, she is trapped in Peking with her fiance and his dying mother as the Communists surround the city. In the late 1950s, Mulberry is imprisoned in an attic in Taiwan, hiding from the authorities who are seeking her husband on embezzlement charges. And, in the final section, she has emigrated to the United States, where she is being pursued by the INS and haunted by her other identity, Peach.

Mulberry's plight is, at best, bleak, but Nieh manages to balance an astonishing sense of humor with the description of the calamities and isolation faced by her protagonist. Hauntingly written and beautifully translated, the novel can be read on many levels: historical and cultural allegory, political satire, a treatise on the immigrant's schizophrenic experience, a commentary on Eastern and Western sexual mores and gender identity. As a bonus, Sau-ling Cynthia Wong's discerning afterword amplifies these and other themes and provides useful background for understanding the novel, but (fortunately) "Mulberry and Peach" will be immediately accessible to any reader.

This qualifies as one of the most remarkable novels I have ever read. The title character Peach, in declaring her freedom, careens on as wild and uninhibited a course as any character in literature much in contrast to her meek and terrified now subaltern Mulberry. Try to buy the version which has an afterword by the translator: read this as you're reading the novel as the comments are interesting, informative, and enlightening. The novel's form, its literary roots, its themes all evade any fixed classification--no one can lay claim to any advocacy unless it is on its plea for the individual's integrity in the face of the attempts by societies, historical forces, and governments to quantify and stratify our lives. But even that claim cannot come close to revealing the complexity and exquisite craft of the work itself. Only on a second reading do I start to discover how much a treasure of telling detail "Mulberry and Peach" is. For you analytical types, there are multiple levels of allegory threading through the work. The caveat to "not overinterpret" seems not to apply. Such compelling writing deserves to become better known, more widely read and reread, and extensively broadcast to college literature classes around the world. Let's get it back in print, and then keep it in print. Although I am given to enthusiasms, I'm not given to hyperbole--I say, this is the work of a most masterful author. Please, someone, translate more of her work!

Hua-Ling Nieh's writing is tantamount to dreaming a song/story, it does not directly appeal to the senses but rather, enters the reader's mind subconsciously. A fascinating portrayal of a woman surviving post World War II turmoil in China, it blatantly and delicately explores the impact of the cultural, lingual, political, and social upheaval that is part of revolution. Mulberry herself undergoes a complete dissociation of her 'hated', 'weaker' Chinese self and morphs into Peach, the 'liberated', 'strong' American self. A wonderful story of survival, mental illness, and cultural transplantation, something many Americans do not appreciate. Should appeal to anyone interested in Chinese or Chinese/American history, feminism, or mental illness in literature.

Did not meet the expectation as indicated in the title. Do not recommend it as first collection of this series. You need to be rather professional to enjoy ths book.

The City Gardener's Handbook: The Definitive Guide To Small-Space Gardening by gardening columnist and expert Linda Yang is a true garden-lover's guide to raising one's choice of plants in an urban or other limited-size environment. Intended for gardeners of all experience and skill levels from neophyte to expert, The City Gardener's Handbook addresses how to find or buy the best plants for a city environment, managing one's garden through the four seasons, dealing with plant parasites and pests, and much more. Gorgeous insert sections with color plates of flourishing city gardens highlight the straightforward text and useful black-and-white diagrams. The City Gardener's Handbook will prove an invaluable addition to any personal, professional, or community library gardening reference collection.

This is the first negative review I've written, and I feel badly about it. I was so anticipating the arrival of this book.

The instructions, which I was eager to get, were only the most general, basic things I already knew even though I'm a raw beginner. I was particularly interested in espalier and pleached allee directions and was hoping for a book with lot of focus on these. A couple of short articles available on the Net were much more informative and illustrated each step very clearly.

The list of recommended plant materials was limited. With a little research on the Internet, I obtained a much more extensive list suited to my area.

The photos were the best part, although they could have been improved, too.

The most positive statement I can make is that the price was most reasonable, and perhaps that is why this book was so lightweight, more for browsing than using for instruction.

I'm ordering another book from Amazon, hoping for better instructions--and hopefully, I'll be able to write a glowing review!

This is a great beginner's book on how to create topiaries & espaliers. The book is in full color with lots of photos. Instructions are clear and easy to follow. In each section appropriate plant types are discussed.

First, frameless topiaries are described. Designs included are lollipop, poodle, spiral, & corkscrew trees. The book then shows how to make empty frame topiaries. Included are circles, hoops and spirals.

Then it shows you how to make a moss-filled bunny. Following this method you can make almost any shape imaginable. Several kinds of espalier shapes, and how to make them are then show.

Finally, knots, mazes, pleaching, pollarding & coppicing are covered. Proper tools and shaping hedges are explained as well. Be aware that most plants used are for warmer climates (zone 6 or above).