You can create an award-winning garden with minimum toil---it's just a matter of knowing and applying some fundamental rules.  In The Rusty Rake Gardener, David and Cathy Cummins reveal their secrets to maintaining a passionate relationship with your garden.  As they write: "When your garden is blooming virtually on its own and your rake is growing rusty from little use, you'll discover a broad smile on your face and more time on your hands."

David and Cathy Cummins, award-winning gardeners, have a long-standing association with the Royal Botanical Gardens.  Their garden, in Dundas, Ontario, is an eagerly anticipated stop on local horticultural tours and has been featured on television and in various publications.

Spring 2004 Update
The Second Edition of Rusty Rake

When we published the First Edition of the Rusty Rake Gardener in 1999, we were pleased and amazed at the response we received from so many people. First-time and experienced gardeners alike seemed to enjoy our experiences and our advice, and it has been great fun to discuss our ideas with so many people.

Gardens are not the only things that change with time, however, and when another firm absorbed our original publisher, Macmillan of Canada, the new owner was not interested in producing gardening books. Rusty Rake became something of an orphan as a result, and eventually vanished from the bookshelves.

Yet the interest in our book remained, and even seemed to grow with time. In fact, we became so weary of explaining that the book was no longer available that we decided to produce a Second Edition ourselves.

Along with the same tales, trials and tips that made up the original Rusty Rake, we’ve updated some information and added new ideas here and there. Now, in addition to being gardeners and authors, we are also publishers. Frankly, we prefer being just gardeners, but if you buy the new edition and get as much pleasure and enjoyment out of it as many people appeared to obtain from the original Rusty Rake Gardener, it will all be worth it to us.

And by the way – please feel free to send your comments and suggestions along to us. Who knows – they may find their way into the Third Edition (if we can find enough energy to produce a Third Edition!).

Sincerely,

Dave and Cathy Cummins.