Book Review: How to Buy the Right Plants, Tools & Garden Supplies

How to Buy the Right Plants, Tools & Garden Supplies
by Jim Fox

224 pages
Timber Press, 2013
List Price: $14.95

With gardening season in full swing, it becomes readily apparent when we don’t have the right tool or ours have seen better days, and we all know how much easier gardening is when we have the right equipment. Jim Fox guides us in making choices in buying new ones. With over 20 years in the nursery business, he answers our questions with authority.

But buying a pair of pruners is only one part of the equation. Fox also helps us know how to choose a healthy plant, how much you can expect to pay for it, and how to take care of it once you get it home. There’s valuable advice on buying and using mulch, fertilizers, containers, hoses and sprinklers, pesticides, and so much more.

This is not a visually stunning book as many gardening books are these days, but it is an essential easy-to-read guide, packed with important information that would make an excellent gift choice for a beginning gardener, as well as saving a few veteran gardeners from making costly mistakes as they tend their gardens.

Jim Fox has been gardening since the age of three. He works in the retail nursery business and also offers private horticultural consultation. His years of experience in answering gardeners’ questions have inspired this book.

Read more garden book reviews.
Read Kylee Baumle’s blog, Our Little Acre.