Roots Demystified: Change Your Gardening Habits to Help Roots Thrive [Paperback]

In the early 1980s Robert Kourik stumbled upon some horticultural gold dust lying on a dusty shelf in the University of California. It was the long-forgotten work of Professor John Weaver, who had meticulously drawn the entire root systems of a number of different plants. Shortly afterwards Kourik wrote his classic book Edible Landscape which became a cult book in the permaculture movement at a time when very few specifically permacultural books had been written. It's a compendium of brilliant ideas for the garden and has recently been reprinted by Pemanent Publications. In it Kourik used many of Weaver's illustrations, plus some from the Russian scientist, V. A. Kolesnikov, and exploded many of the current myths about roots. In Roots Demystified he allows himself to go into more detail about these two investigators' work and adds the fruit of his own gardening experience. The descriptive parts of the book make full use of Weaver s and Kolesnikov's remarkable drawings and are backed up by frequent sections headed 'Practical tips for gardeners'. There s also a brilliant chapter on humus and mulch and a somewhat unconventional one on planting trees. In addition a couple of subjects which were hardly known in the mid-80s are briefly covered, including mycorrhiza, the mutually beneficial relationships which plant roots make with fungi. All is told in Kourik s direct and simple style with a rich vein of humour. It's not as long as the page count might suggest, as the print size is very large and there's plenty of blank paper. But though the quantity of information may be low the quality is high. It's definitely a book I would recommend to any serious gardener, even if you already have Edible Landscape. --Patrick Whitefield, author of The Earth Care Manual

A rare combination of firsthand observation, research, humor, and the author's practicality make for a refreshingly original look at roots. --Joy Larkcom, Author, Grow Your Own Vegetables, Lislevane, Co. Cork, Ireland

A gold mine of fascinating facts about the secret life of plants under the ground. Kourik has spent a lifetime studying plants, both as a professional gardener and as journalist hunting down the truth hidden in horticultural research. In this book, he has pulled all that together into a coherent story about the way plants and soils really interact. While the focus of Roots Demystified is most squarely on trees and shrubs, the book is one of the best I have read on how to get plants of any kind to grow, and grow well. --Jack Ruttle, Garden Design magazine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

This book is a clearly written and copiously illustrated book that explains how to make any plant flourish, using methods based on the knowledge of how roots actually grow. It explores the subterranean areas of every gardener's world, revealing the complex and secret lives of roots and root systems, debunking outworn gardening myths, and providing down-to-earth advice on root-efficient planting and cultivation methods. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.