Easy Gardens for South Florida

Easy Gardens for South Florida
Average customer rating:

A Must have for a Florida Transplant

FABULOUS BOOK

Excellent Reference

The Only Books You Need for Florida Gardening

An Excellent Resource for (South) Florida Gardeners

Easy Gardens for South Florida
Pamela Crawford
Manufacturer: Color Garden Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
South | Regional | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Best Garden Color for Florida (Florida Gardening Series)

Container Gardens for Florida

Stormscaping (Florida Gardening Series, Vol. 3)

Native Florida Plants, Revised Edition: Low Maintenance Landscaping and Gardening, Revised

Florida Gardener's Guide, 2nd Edition

ASIN: 0971222002

Book Description

A comprehensive garden guide for south Florida, this book features detailed information on 100 easy plants and 65 easy gardens. The focus is on beautiful plant material and gardens that require little water and simple care. Perennials that provide constant color are also featured. Garden design chapters cover small gardens, shade gardens, sun gardens, and garden style. With 371 great color photos, the book is designed to simplify and beautify south Florida gardens.

Customer Reviews:

A Must have for a Florida Transplant.......2007-09-15

If you are new to South Florida and would like to start a garden for your new home, this book is a must. South Florida's unique climate and soil can impede your garden from growing or even beginning. The money I saved on flowers that will not work in this climate easily paid for this book. The garden centers may sell the same plants you may have had up north, but unfortunately they will die quickly. After a year of trying different plants and being unsuccessful, I now have a beautiful garden filled with flowers I learned about in this book.

FABULOUS BOOK.......2007-07-24

THE PICTURES ARE SPECTACULAR AND THE DESCRIPTIONS AND HINTS ARE THE BEST I'VE COME ACROSS - THANK YOU SO MUCH

Excellent Reference.......2007-05-05

Great photos, well written, invaluable source of botonical info for serious South Florida gardeners, and the rest of us that just like to tinker in our gardens.

The Only Books You Need for Florida Gardening.......2006-03-10

I have purchased all of Pamela's books because they tell you everything you need to know about Florida gardening, with pictures! But most importantly, Pamela has experimented with every plant described in the books and knows what works and what doesn't. She also discusses the maintenance and light conditions required for each plant to keep it looking healthy. Follow her advice and enjoy you garden. It will be beautiful!

Don Meder
Delray Beach, FL

An Excellent Resource for (South) Florida Gardeners.......2005-03-30

My husband got this book for me when he saw all the positive reviews. I was initially reluctant because I thought it was going to be just silly and repetitive. I was WRONG.

This book is never on the shelf, but always on my desk. Ms. Crawford does an excellent job of organizing the material, and particularly excels in giving you the information you need for each particular plant (light, shade, water, companions, etc.). She has tested each and every plant in the book, and therefore her comments are insightful. I particularly like the thumbnail section for types of gardens (bright, medium, shade and variations thereof).

My only criticism would be that she can be repetitive in her plant selections (lots of recommendations for ruellia katie and golden shrimp plant). However, I can't think of a better "plain-english" guide to gardening in this difficult climate.

Average customer rating:

A terrific resource for wanna-be gardeners
Tough Plants for Southern Gardens
for new and experienced gardeners alike
Great book; easy to understand, much useful information.
Great for novices and transplant gardeners - and funny!

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens
Felder Rushing
Manufacturer: Cool Springs Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

The Southern Gardener's Book of Lists: The Best Plants for All Your Needs, Wants, and Whims
The Southern Living Garden Book
Gardening With Native Plants of the South
Passalong Plants
Southern Living Landscape Book (Southern Living (Paperback Oxmoor))

ASIN: 1591860024

Book Description

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens is for Southern gardeners who want low care, no care, tried and true plants for their gardens. This is the book for gardeners who want plants they can plant and forget!

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens is written for novice and accomplished gardeners alike, for all gardeners who value their leisure time. They also value the appearance of their home and appreciate the benefits of well-placed landscaping…however; they do not want to devote too much time to keeping it beautiful.

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens includes 120 of the toughest plants for Southern gardens, including annuals, bulbs, perennials, shrubs and small trees, ornamental vines, and lawns. Each featured plant is noted for its ability to thrive with minimal care. Many of the selections can withstand drought, poor soils, and minimal (or no) pruning, while providing beauty and charm in the home landscape.

Each selection provides specific information on the plant's use in the landscape, mature size, flowering characteristics (if applicable), varieties, soil preference, and propagation. Each chapter also contains informative essays covering topics such as: companion planting tips, pest avoidance, and handling invasive plants.

Customer Reviews:

A terrific resource for wanna-be gardeners.......2007-10-04

I moved from a shady lot in the bitter-cold North to a new house with full sun in the South. I had to re-learn nearly everthing I knew about gardening, and this book got me through. It gave me a wonderful roadmap of where to start.

The book is filled with tips on specific plants. Some of these plants are things you see in everyone's garden, but quite a few are unusual beauties. The author tries to keep things simple, such as the confounding (to me) subject of pruning roses. Information is presented in a surprisingly humorous way. Even my husband--who has zero interest in gardening--was reading it and laughing out loud.

Also, with a new baby sitting on my hip most of the day, I need low care plants. Maybe I will become a master gardener someday, but I don't foresee it happening for about eighteen years! In the meantime, I can still have a beautiful garden, with the help of this book.

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens.......2007-08-29

I love this book. I'm always referring back to it. I would love to find more books like it.

for new and experienced gardeners alike.......2007-03-31

Felder Rushing is my personal gardening guru. This book explores a vast selection of plants that are nearly unkillable, from houseplants, annuals, perennials, and tropicals. He's one of the more humorous garden writers around, to boot.

Great book; easy to understand, much useful information........2006-07-25

I like this book a lot. Terrific pictures, simple explanations. It is just what I needed to find the kinds of plants I can grow in the south without driving myself nuts.

Great for novices and transplant gardeners - and funny!.......2006-04-20

I'm not an avid gardener, and don't have a shelf full of garden books - in fact this is nearly the only one. Fortunately, it turns out to be all I needed to make my little bit of space presentable without spending lots of money and effort. Whether you'd rather not water for environmental reasons, can't spend a lot of time coping with your lawn, or just like sturdy Southern plants, this is a great book. It's also surprisingly funny! (The bulbs section starts with a sidebar entitled "Tulips Hate the South" - already found that one out, thanks.)

A short introduction covers horticulture topics at a very general level, but the primary focus is on describing a large number of no-maintenance plants that do well in the Southern climate and soils. The book is divided into sections by type of plant (perennials, shrubs, and so on); for each plant, details are given on how to plant it, how to care for it, where to put it, and what to expect from it over time. Each has a picture, usually detailed enough to allow you to identify it at a nursery. Additionally, sections begin with short lists of plants that are "Great for beginners" (extremely easy to deal with) or "Kinda tricky." Random advice, like how to successfully plant wildflowers in your lawn, is scattered throughout.

CONS (sorta): Probably not terribly informative to an experienced Southern gardener. Not a general book on horticulture. Not restricted to native plants.

The Low-Maintenance Garden: A Complete Guide to Designs, Plants and Techniques for Easy-care Gardens

Average customer rating:

Low-Maintenance... helpful to the amateur

The Low-Maintenance Garden: A Complete Guide to Designs, Plants and Techniques for Easy-care Gardens
Susan Berry , and Steve Bradley
Manufacturer: Firefly Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Landscape | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Hardscaping : High Style, Low Maintenance Outdoor Spaces (Home & Garden)

ASIN: 1552095142

Book Description

Essential reading for those who desire a beautiful garden without the back-breaking work, The Low-Maintenance Garden is the guide to enjoying your garden rather than spending hours toiling in it. This book shows how to minimize and simplify gardening tasks, and over time create a virtually maintenance-free garden.

Packed with planting plans, charts, ideas and step-by-step techniques for minimizing work, The Low-Maintenance Garden is beautifully laid out with easy-to-access information for every type and size of garden. In addition to many full-color photographs and illustrations, the book features:

Easy Surfaces and Structures - creating an easy-care surface in the garden
Easy Planting Solutions - low-maintenance plants for a wide range of situations
Transforming Gardens to Lower Maintenance - how to turn any size garden into a low-maintenance garden
Low-Maintenance Techniques - essential tips on reducing time spent on basic gardening chores
Directory of Easy-Care Plants - from trouble-free trees to easy grasses and water plants

With real-life case studies and many tips and suggestions, gardeners can now recapture leisure time.

Customer Reviews:

Low-Maintenance... helpful to the amateur.......2000-05-23

If you want to work in the yard or garden, but don't have time... OR even if you don't want to work in the yard or garden and enjoy the simply pleasures of a well landscaped yard... this book is for you. There are ideas and designs for walkways, small ponds, fountains, rasied beds, and seating areas. Picking the right plants is most important and this book helps to narrow the choices. There is also a section on how to minimize your chores. And of course there are some photos that help you get the creative juices going for ideas on everything from Japanese Gardens to Urban Jungles... Good Resource!

Hardscaping : High Style, Low Maintenance Outdoor Spaces (Home & Garden)

Average customer rating:

Hardscaping : High Style, Low Maintenance Outdoor Spaces (Home & Garden)
Haig Seferian
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Landscape | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Landscape | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Hardscaping: How to Use Structures, Pathways, Patios & Ornaments in Your Garden
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ASIN: 0071422498

Book Description

Hardscaping -- the use of materials such as stone, wood, brick, and tile in landscape design -- has become enormously popular in recent years. Low maintenance, durable, and attractive, hardscaping brings a totally unique, personalized look to any outdoor space, and increases curb appeal and property value. This gorgeous, full-color reference, written by the host of HGTV's Garden Architecture, explains how to blend function and materials to create a beautiful, long-lasting outdoor living space. Projects range from simple to complex, and the author covers every issue from budgeting to planning and installation.

Covers porches, patios, retaining walls, walkways, steps, poolscapes, driveways, and more
Practical advice on choosing and working with contractors and designers
Beautifully illustrated with 200 full-color photos
How to establish and stick to a budget
Details the properties of popular materials such as wood, concrete, asphalt, pre-cast and natural stone

Beyond the Lawn: Unique Outdoor Spaces for Modern Living

Average customer rating:

Great Book!
Crafting a unique, personal, and relaxing atmosphere
Many unusual beautiful gardens & good design analysis

Beyond the Lawn: Unique Outdoor Spaces for Modern Living
Keith Davitt
Manufacturer: Rockport Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Small Spaces, Beautiful Gardens
Patio: Garden Design & Inspiration
Hardscaping: How to Use Structures, Pathways, Patios & Ornaments in Your Garden
Gardening in Small Spaces : Creative Ideas from America's Best Gardeners (Fine Gardening Design Guides)
Urban Sanctuaries

ASIN: 1564969576

Book Description

Tired of being a slave to that green carpet in your yard? Enjoy gardening but don't have much space to work with? Love the idea of a water-saving, pesticide-free, natural-looking yard that also happens to look great?

This refreshing book offers a wealth of ideas for nontraditional outdoor spaces that are as beautiful as they are low-maintenance. Written by veteran landscape designer Keith Davitt, this guide shows how to banish cutting, watering, and weed worries forever by creating lovely outdoor spaces that replace the traditional grass lawn with rock walls, sculptures, native grasses, mosses, wildflowers, and more.

Davitt guides readers through making design choices that suit their unique needs, such as determining which plants will thrive in particular climates and soil conditions. Filled with easy-to-follow tips and techniques, illustrative photos, and color renderings of design plans for outdoor spaces, this is a comprehensive guide to simply beautiful alternative gardens

Keith Davitt has been designing, building, photographing, and writing about gardens around the globe for 20 years. He recently won the Herald Award for Excellence in Garden Communication, and his gardens and articles have appeared in numerous gardening magazines. He is also the author of Small Spaces, Beautiful Gardens (Rockport, 2001). He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book!.......2004-11-25

This is a great book for the gardener with little space. All of the gardens featured are pretty small by suburban standards. But none the less, the gardens and designs Keith Davitt covers are spectacular.
You will discover how to get rid of that same old boring lawn that everyone else has on the block. Davitt takes you through creating your very own unique garden with stone, brick, gravel, water and lots more. He covers why it works for the owner and the space given. It gives valuable insights for the gardener planning a new space.

Crafting a unique, personal, and relaxing atmosphere.......2003-10-10

Written by gardening expert Keith Davitt (winner of the Herald Award for Excellence in Garden Communication), Beyond The Lawn: Unique Outdoor Spaces For Modern Living is a simply beautiful and exceptionally "user friendly" sourcebook of ideas for creating harmony with stone, brick gravel, rock, water, herbs, conifers, planted pots, native and wild plants. Lavishly illustrated with full-color photography, Beyond The Lawn is a treat to page through and recommended for gardeners everywhere looking to add a bit of originality to the grounds outside their home. Offering a vast panoply of materials for crafting a unique, personal, and relaxing atmosphere, Beyond The Lawn is a welcome and enthusiastically recommended addition to professional and personal gardening reference collections.

Many unusual beautiful gardens & good design analysis.......2003-08-08

This book is full of pictures of unusual and beautiful gardens all very different from one another. I especially enjoyed seeing the variety of what is possible. The text focuses mainly on design with discussion on style and analysis of what works and why. Although I think Keith Davitt's first book "Small Spaces Beautiful Gardens" was a superior book with more information on how each garden was created and before & after pictures, I still highly recommend this book for its many examples and design tips.

Ann Lovejoy's Organic Garden Design School (A Rodale Organic Gardening Book)

Average customer rating:

clearly written
Poorly organized but good information
An excellent guide for all gardening levels
Excellent guide to organic gardening and design

Ann Lovejoy's Organic Garden Design School (A Rodale Organic Gardening Book)
Ann Lovejoy
Manufacturer: Rodale Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Naturalistic Gardening: Reflecting the Planting Patterns of Nature
The Ann Lovejoy Handbook of Northwest Gardening: Natural-Sustainable-Organic
Fragrance in Bloom: The Scented Garden Throughout the Year
The Year in Bloom
A Year Along the Garden Path: Beyond the Basics - Gardening for All Seasons

ASIN: 157954987X

Amazon.com

West Coast gardening guru Ann Lovejoy has gained a significant following, and deservedly so--she's a gifted teacher, a lyrical writer, and a passionate advocate of organic solutions to even the most daunting garden problems. Her Organic Garden Design School is meant for readers who still consider themselves students, but who are serious enough to "move beyond the beginner stage." A 36-page workbook concludes this glossy, lavishly illustrated volume. Workbook assignments include "Drawing a Map," "Testing Soil," and "Minding Your Mulch."

As a designer of gardens that are faithful to the natural world and don't require too much pruning or artificial control, Lovejoy invents her own terms. Her style resembles English gardening, except she warns against the nostalgic impulse many gardeners fall into, determined to create gardens from another era or another country. Lovejoy's an advocate of "gardening where you live," not forcing a dream of another place onto the landscape. She emphasizes native plants, designing around slopes or flaws, working with shade or sunlight as they appear. Perhaps most instructive are her "five senses" of the garden: the sense of welcome, enclosure, and entry, flow, and place. "Rather than physical attributes," she writes, "these are more subtle aspects that give each garden its own flavor and character." --Emily White

Book Description

This new paperback edition of Ann Lovejoy's spectacular organic gardening book brings a lifetime's worth of experience and knowledge from one of this country's leading gardening experts. In it she shows readers how to apply her organic design principles to any site, large or small, to create healthy, self-sufficient gardens that are easy to care for, ecologically sound, and enduringly beautiful. 'As gifted a writer as she is a gardener, Lovejoy is always a pleasure to read, and her lyric prose is at the heart of this inspired and inspiring volume....Readers may find themselves as charmed by her singular turns of phrase as they are by her horticultural wisdom.'-Publishers Weekly, starred review 'In this powerhouse of a book, Ann Lovejoy, the prolific queen of American garden writing, tackles the toughest subject-designing one's garden. She puts the effortless flow of her beautiful prose along with her characteristic humor and intelligence to work on intense concepts, such as organic gardening and layering. The result is a superb clarification of the mysteries of garden design.'-Lauren Springer, author of The Undaunted Garden

Customer Reviews:

clearly written.......2002-09-14

I have enjoyed using this book as a good reference for my growing garden. Lovejoy's style is clear, she provides some worksheets in the back of the book, which I found helpful. I also noted her 'voice' in the book is not haughty or stuffy - she is friendly, and clear, which as an avid reader of garden books, I found refreshing. Her ideas are both simple and logical. I love this book.

Poorly organized but good information.......2002-05-27

Since I'm currently resolved to redesign my yard in the interests of increasing its ecological value and decreasing required maintenance, this "organic garden design school" SEEMED like the perfect book for me. And there is a lot of good information in here, about design considerations, planting tips, etc, some of which I've found nowhere else, and which have made the book worthwhile to me. HOWEVER, winnowing that information from the book was not very easy. Though the title suggests this is a textbook, it is really a long series of 1- or 2-page rambles about one or another aspect of the author's experience gardening her own yard (and one other yard). This work is poorly edited and organized, and there is a huge emphasis on just those two examples of garden design. To apply the lessons of this book myself, I needed more than anecdotes from two situations unlike my own. I needed some generally stated design principles, as well as some very specific techniques (e.g. how to build raised beds like the author's). While this information is in there, and some of it is quite illuminating, those gems occur nearly randomly within the 1- or 2-page rambles. If the book was titled something like "Design Thoughts," perhaps I wouldn't be so disappointed, but a "school" and a "guide," with all the clarity those words suggest, this book is not. A workbook section at the end of the book makes up for this by finally providing the reader with a definite guide for action. But it would have been a much more of a "school" and a "guide" if the workbook had been integrated into the chapters, rather than tacked on at the end.

An excellent guide for all gardening levels.......2001-05-19

Create a beautiful and easy organic garden with the aid of Organic Garden Design School, a design-oriented book which covers topics ranging from linking cultivation efforts to the natural environment offered to using colors and textures in the garden. Using space wisely, choosing native plants, and creating a garden mood are all covered in an excellent guide for all gardening levels.

Excellent guide to organic gardening and design.......2001-04-02

The author teaches garden design classes near Seattle, Washington and shares her outlines here. She is a strong advocate of naturalistic gardening and encourages gardeners to seek out the native plants growing in their particular area and use them to their greatest advantage in an entirely organic way. She begins by discussing the principles of design with the "five senses of the garden" (welcome, enclosure, entry, flow, and place) and continues with other design principles such as "green architecture" (elements of the garden such as plants and structures), creating natural backdrops, "sandwich gardening" (intermingling plants in the same location), and using combinations and vignettes. Other informative sections focus on paths and walkways, layering plants to scale, and problem-solving. Helpful charts list specific plants for certain situations. The last third of the book focuses on maintenance and offers clearcut advice and instructions on mulching, composting, etc. Included at the end of the volume is a 34-page workbook for readers to list plant choices, set goals, and create their own garden plan.

Tough Plants for California Gardens: Low Care, No Care, Tried and True Winners (Tough Plants)

Average customer rating:

A gardener with a sense of humor!

Tough Plants for California Gardens: Low Care, No Care, Tried and True Winners (Tough Plants)
Felder Rushing
Manufacturer: Cool Springs Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

California Native Plants for the Garden
Sunset Western Garden Book
California Home Landscaping
Native Treasures: Gardening With the Plants of California (Phyllis M. Faber Books)
California Top 10 Garden Guide (Sunset Books)

ASIN: 1591861896

Book Description

California has unique and varying growing conditions. This easy-to-use guide for California gardens gives you step-by-step instructions on selecting and growing for more than 150 low-maintenance plants and shrubs that thrive in diverse California, including annuals, perennials, vines, shrubs, and trees.

In addition, you'll find gardening basics for maximum result, such as:

The benefits of one-time soil preparation
The secret of summer and winter mulching
The "less is more" fertilization technique that keeps your plants in perfect shape
The best methods for irrigation
Tips on keeping your plants pest free without over-using traditional pest controls

Customer Reviews:

A gardener with a sense of humor!.......2007-07-12

Intrigued by the title, I began reading this book and found myself laughing out loud with the author's descriptions. Though a good book for anyone with an interest in gardening, with its easy-to-follow instructions, beautiful pictures and recommendations, this is also a 'good read' for those of us who are already gardening addicts. I was glad to find someone else who couldn't pass up an intriguing plant even though we had absolutely no idea where we were going to put it. This is a book for the curious, the experimenter, and those who simply find joy in the garden. I loved the book, have already enjoyed reading the commentary over and over again...and, of course, will look for some of the recommendations I haven't heard of before. This would also make a great gift for any 'budding' gardener!

Average customer rating:

Tough Plants for Florida Gardens
Felder Rushing
Manufacturer: Cool Springs Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Ornamental Plants | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Native Florida Plants, Revised Edition: Low Maintenance Landscaping and Gardening, Revised
Florida Gardener's Guide, 2nd Edition
Florida Top 10 Garden Guide (Top 10 Garden Guides)
Florida Landscape Plants: Native And Exotic
The Florida Gardener's Book of Lists (Book of Lists Series)

ASIN: 1591861209

Book Description

Tough Plants for Florida Gardens is for gardeners who want low care, no care, tried and true plants for their gardens. This is the book for gardeners who want plants they can plant and forget!

Tough Plants for Florida Gardens is written for novice and accomplished Florida gardeners alike, for all gardeners who value their leisure time. They also value the appearance of their home and appreciate the benefits of well-placed landscaping…however; they do not want to devote too much time to keeping it beautiful.

Tough Plants for Florida Gardens includes over 180 of the toughest plants for Florida gardens, including annuals, perennials, shrubs and small trees, ornamental vines, and grasses. Each featured plant is noted for its ability to thrive with minimal care. Many of the selections can withstand drought, poor soils, and minimal (or no) pruning, while providing beauty and charm in the Florida landscape.

Create a Mediterranean Garden: Planting a Low-Maintenance, Drought-Proof Paradise Anywhere

Average customer rating:

Absolutely invaluable
Let this book inspire your garden.
How to plant a naturalistic mediterranean hillside garden
Mediterranean vacation in your backyard

Create a Mediterranean Garden: Planting a Low-Maintenance, Drought-Proof Paradise Anywhere
Pattie Barron
Manufacturer: Lorenz Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Reference | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Make Your Own Mediterranean Garden
Sun-Drenched Gardens: The Mediterranean Style
Gardening the Mediterranean Way: How to Create a Waterwise, Drought-Tolerant Garden

ASIN: 1859678912

Book Description

Create a Mediterranean Garden full of glorious color and scent, with vivid flowers and foliage, and aromatic herbs - the perfect outdoor living room.

Customer Reviews:

Absolutely invaluable.......2003-10-20

This book is clear and easy to follow, practical yet artistic.
From preparing the ground, to creating special personal spaces in the sun. It has taught me a lot about Mediterranean terrain,
and how the plants have adapted to survive the climate.
There is no doubt planning a Mediterranean garden is very different from planning an English one and this book is ideal with its suggestions for planting, be it open ground, pots or courtyards. I loved it!

Let this book inspire your garden........2002-10-21

As a beginning gardener with a large garden to plan, I've found this book to be a wonderful inspiration and a good gardening resource. My idea of low-maintenance is NO maintenance, and that's pretty much the idea behind this book (although the soil preparation required can be quite extensive). I return to this book whenever I need to be reminded that a garden can be beautiful without being rigidly planned.

The only weakness is that the plant lists include only true Mediterranean plants, rather than including other plants (for example, plants native to Southern California) that meet the criteria for drought-resistance and low-maintenance.

How to plant a naturalistic mediterranean hillside garden.......2002-04-17

This book is written by Brits, so the perspective is a "how to" from a relatively cold climate, and the advice is a bit skewed. If you live in a mediterranean climate and are new to gardening, I don't think this would be the best advice book (check a regional book). The mediterranean gardens used for inspiration are the wild, hilly areas of France, Spain and Italy--not the quaint domesticated gardens in homes and villas along the sea. On the plus side, there is good information on how to prepare the soil for planting a mediterranean garden, which plants will likely succeed, and how to get the look they've described. I enjoyed the details about how specific plants survive in a drought-tolerant climate. There are "weekend project" ideas (i.e., creating mosaic pots and tables) that may or may not appeal to the reader. This is the kind of book I'd rather get from the library, than purchase, as the information I found helpful was minimal.

Mediterranean vacation in your backyard.......2000-02-25

If your idea of gardening is low-maintenance, informal and full of creativity, this is the book for you. I own many gardening books but must say that this is one that has given me lots of great and useful ideas to try out. Last year we adapted a suggestion from the book and painted pieces of broken terracotta pots in vivid colors and patterns. We then used those pieces in our gravel path, mixed with colored glass marbles and beach glass. It looked great - almost better than the original! There are also lots of useful practical tips on planting, propagating and over-wintering, as well as pictures of how a flower bed develops over the course of a season - very hands-on, ideal especially for someone who doesn't feel overly confident with gardening... Very good buy!

Tough Plants for Northern Gardens: Low Care, No Care, Tried and True Winners

Average customer rating:

Very helpful for a beginning gardener
northern garden plants
Not your garden-variety gardening book!
Great! Entertaining! Helpful! Real! - Highly Recommended!

Tough Plants for Northern Gardens: Low Care, No Care, Tried and True Winners
Felder Rushing
Manufacturer: Cool Springs Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Growing Perennials in Cold Climates
Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guide to Cold Climate Gardening: How to Select and Grow the Best Vegetables and Ornamental Plants for the North (Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guides)
Growing Shrubs and Small Trees in Cold Climates
Cold-Climate Gardening: How to Extend Your Growing Season by at Least 30 Days
Organic Gardening in Cold Climates

ASIN: 1591860636

Book Description

The northern garden, with its unique growing conditions, presents gardeners with a major challenge. Many popular plants simply do not grow well in colder climates. Now, this easy-to-use guide for northern gardens gives you step-by-step instructions on choosing and caring for more than 150 low-maintenance plants and shrubs that thrive in colder climates including…

Annuals
Perennials
Vines
Shrubs
Trees

In addition, you'll discover other important gardening basics for maximum results…

The benefits of one-time soil preparation
The secret of summer and winter mulching
The "less is more" fertilization technique that keeps your plants in perfect shape
The best methods for irrigation
Tips on keeping your plants pest free without over-using traditional pest controls

Tough Plants for Northern Gardens…your solution for a beautiful, healthy, low-care garden.

Customer Reviews:

Very helpful for a beginning gardener.......2007-09-06

As a beginning gardener, this book has helped me quickly focus in on plants that will work where I live. The pictures are great for identifying neighbors' plants. His descriptions are brief, but more candid (and helpful) than the dry, encyclopedic listings which can be found in other books. Plus his writing is fun to read. I initially borrowed this (and many many many others) from the library. This is one of the few I am buying for ongoing reference.

northern garden plants.......2007-08-20

Book is overpriced, but it costs even more at the bookstore.There isn't really anything new here in this book or anything that couldn't be found in other garden books, in fact, this book offers even a little less than some garden books.

Not your garden-variety gardening book!.......2007-04-20

I live in the upper Midwest, where the climate is extremely cold, wet, and windy, ( except when it's extremely hot, wet and windy) and the growing season is short. But with the help of this book, I learned how to avoid spending money on plants and garden items that just don't work. That means more money to spend on plants that do work, and more free time to enjoy them.

If you live in the region covered by this book, have a garden, or would like have a garden, you really need this book. If you have been baffled or thwarted by all the gardening books and magazines that seem to make things too complicated, or if you just don't know where to start, you need this book! It lives up to the title, because the plants listed in this book really do grow beautifully in our climate with hardly any effort, once you get them in the ground. There is enough variety to satisfy just about anyone's taste in colors and plant forms, and most of the plants are easy to find in your local nursery.

I loved the author's sense of humor and his wonderful attitude-finally someone with the sense to say what I always wanted to hear. Lazy gardening is good gardening!!

Great! Entertaining! Helpful! Real! - Highly Recommended!.......2005-09-30

This is the best gardening book I own. Orginally, I borrowed it from my local library for 6 months. I just couldn't take it back-kept renewing it and renewing it. It was indispensable. Finally, I broke down and bought 5 copies - for myself, my mother and all my friends. Mr. Rushing gives great advice for northern gardners, as we are kind of a "special" club. Also, he has a wonderful sense of humour, so the book is enjoyable to read. I still snicker over some of his comments. It is a great gift for ANY "Northern Gardener," novice or expert.

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