Dust jacket notes: "Among millions aroused by the warnings of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring are the home gardeners: a multitude who are appalled to discover (once they decipher the small-print labels on the 'magical' weed-killers and 'new' garden sprays) that they, of all people, have been using the very same lethal chemicals Miss Carson so seriously questions. For those who love their gardens and everything that lives in them - birds, 'good'bugs, pets, children, vegetables, flowers, and shrubs - the decision has been quick: No more of these poisons in MY garden. But thousands have asked: What do we do now? What did gardeners do before these new poisons flooded the market? Janet Gillespie, born of generations of gardeners and with twenty-five years of labor and exultation in her own New Hampshire garden, set out to assemble the answers. She already knew some of them, from memories of her grandmother's flowers and vegetables growing together in wild abandon, fertilized by the barnyard personnel (including Rajah the peacock), the beds edged with marigolds to repel destructive insects. From her own experience, from scores of old garden books, from horticultural research and talks with experts, she has assembled this treasure trove of practical advice on how to run a garden without using the deadly new poisons. She gives fascinating facts, recipes, and common-sense lore about lawns, flowers (including roses), bulbs, vegetables, shrubs, and trees. For instance, if you plant the right things together, they fight one another's enemies; this is companionate planting, of which little has been known, up to now, by the average gardener...."