About this item
Explains how to use a systems of layered mulch materials to provide a nutrient-rich base for healthy gardens and robust flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits in small spaces and containers.
About the Author
Patricia Lanza was born in 1935 in Crossville, Tennessee to teen-agers George and Mamie Neal. An only child for eight years, Pat spent her early formative years with three loving grand-parents while her parents worked in Detroit, MI.When her parents divorced Pat stayed with her mother and they moved to Jacksonville, FL. By age 15 Pat was married and by age 27 would have 7 children. She and her military husband worked hard to raise their family and get them through school. After his retiement Pat and her husband moved to New York's Catskill Mountains to own and operate a country inn. It was there, in the rocky soil of the Catskills, with little time or energy to spare for gardening, Pat learned to make gardens without digging, tilling or weeding. She called it "lasagna gardening" and the results of using this method got noticed. A newspaper publisher asked Pat to write a weekly column, garden clubs asked for lectures and then for a book. Pat's first book, self-published in three months, "How to Create Beautiful Gardens" came out in 1995. Pat continued to write for the weekly and also wrote for a daily with 750,000 readers. Legendary publisher Rodale Press took notice and signed a contract for Lasagna Gardening, No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! Published in November of 1998 it took home the Garden Writer's of America Quill and Trowel Award in 1999. Pat went on to write Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces in 2002 and Lasagna Gardening with Herbs in 2004. Pat doesn't sit on her laurals and has continued to work as she nears her 75th birthday. Her latest work is a re-print of a book she bought at a yard sale: "My Garden Doctor" by Frances Duncan. First published in 1913 it is now in the public domain and out of print. The story is inspiring and worth being reprinted so others can read it and Pat loves it. In addition, Pat is working on a book "My Grandmother's Aprons" to come out in 2011 or 2012. It is preceeded by a CD with Pat telling the first fourteen pages of the story of her own grandmother's aprons and what she did with them. The book will be a collection of other's memories of their own grandmother's aprons and illustrated.
