Getting on with Gardening – the essential guide to gardening with a visual impairment

These books are now available in two new and extended editions. They are packed with tried-and-tested techniques, gathered from our many years of work with visually impaired gardeners.  

• Volume 1 has information on seed sowing, potting, gardening outside, tools and equipment, raised beds, preparing the ground, planting and watering.

• Volume 2 expands the gardener’s knowledge with sections on taking cuttings, container growing, more gardening outside, protected growing, pruning, the lawn, pests and diseases and labelling.

Both volumes have large, clear, diagrams in print or tactile versions, and a wealth of tips from gardeners including ideas from the winners of the Blind Gardener of the Year competitions.

We were delighted when Pippa Greenwood, garden designer and journalist, agreed to write a foreword for the Getting on with Gardening volumes:

“Gardening is it. It has the potential to change your life and lift your spirits. And that's the same whether you're blind, partially sighted or sighted. I can be miserable, dejected, rejected, worried or just plain grumpy and yet after a few minutes in the garden, preferably in direct contact with the soil and plants, I can feel my mood lifting as everything starts to take on a better light.

“Add to all this the fact that gardening can be good for the environment (including local wildlife), is great exercise (and a lot more satisfying and constructive than a trip to the gym!) and can include social activities... and you'll know why I'm so pleased that 'Getting on with Gardening' has been published. So read it, make use of it... and get gardening!”

Getting on with Gardening is available in large print, on Daisy CD, on audio CD and tape and in Braille. Each volume costs £7.50 or £5 for subscribers to Come Gardening magazine. To order your copies, contact our Information Service or call us on 0118 988 5688. Alternatively you can write to us: Thrive, The Geoffrey Udall Centre, Beech Hill, Reading, RG7 2AT

Getting on with Gardening has been rewritten and updated by Thrive and published by RNIB, with funding from the Big Lottery Fund.