The Grumpy Gardener: An A to Z Guide from the South's Most Irritable Green Thumb

by Steve Bender

For over 33 years, gardeners in the South and beyond have turned to Garden Editor Steve Bender for his gardening expertise, delivered with equal doses of sarcasm and side-splitting humour. In his first book, he delivers valuable tips for planting, troubleshooting and growing success in his signature cantankerous style. Organised alphabetically by plant types and topics that run the gamut from azaleas and zoysia, and from chipmunks and chainsaws, The Grumpy Gardener offers a bumper crop of gardening know-how, pithy advice and ample humour for seasoned Southern gardeners, dirt-digging wannabes and plant assassins alike. This never boring read is a welcome gift for Grumpy fans, serious Southern gardeners and green thumbs everywhere who appreciate tried-and-true gardening advice as much as a great read.

• ISBN13: 9780848753139
• Publish Date: 7 December 2017 (first published 24 October 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 29 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Oxmoor House, Incorporated
• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Grumpy Gardener by Steve Bender, an editor for Southern Living, is a collection of garden snippets essays and advice arranged in an A to Z format. Each letter of the alphabet contains several entries often with short (and very funny) reader sent question sidebars with information for getting rid of ants, killing bamboo, and avoiding letting your cat drive the lawn tractor - He's too short to see over the steering wheel and will likely run over your flowers. :)

The entire book is sarcastic and humorous and innocently grumpy. There's a lot of sensible gardening advice and a fair bit of humor. The book itself is heavily slanted to the southern areas of the USA (he does work for Southern Living magazine), though there's a lot of info that is perfectly suitable and usable for other areas. I did recognize a few of the entries, so I believe that at least some of the content is reprinted from past issues of Southern Living. It's nice to have them collected in one place though.

This book is more of a gardening humor read than an actual reference book. I sat and read it cover to cover and found myself chuckling along quite often.


256 pages, ebook and hardcover formats, published October 24, 2017 by Southern Living/Time Inc Books.

Four stars

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.