Gardening

From flowers and foliage to ferns and grasses, learn to create the perfect garden with the best perennials. This handy format offers experts, practical advice and inspiration.

Nothing adds drama to an outdoor space like a marble fountain or a stone statue. This history of American garden ornament presents a wealth of information on American gardens and their decoration from 1740 to 1940.

"Packed with planting and design ideas that will transform even the humblest of pots into a flower festival."
--Doug Jimerson, Editor in Chief, Garden Escape, www.garden.com

"Who better to turn to for everything you need to know about container culture than a guy who has 'been there, done that' for a careerful of years?"
--Joseph F. Williamson, Former Garden Editor and Managing Editor, Sunset Magazine

While historical reports of container gardening go back thousands of years, over the last half-century, this unique form of husbandry has blossomed into a pastime enjoyed by hobbyists worldwide. Millions have discovered the immense satisfaction to be found in growing something beautiful, in creating interesting combinations of plants, experimenting with new plants, and getting to know plants more intimately than they ever could with plants in the ground.

Written by leading gardening journalist Bill Marken and the experts of the National Gardening Association, Container Gardening For Dummies is the ultimate guide to cultivating charming gardens in everything from a redwood window box to a hanging basket to an old pair of cowboy boots. It fills you in on how to:

Grow almost anything in a container

Make greens flourish on roofs, balconies, and windowsills

Create a one-of-a-kind garden using classic and offbeat containers

Use the best fertilizing and watering techniques for your climate

Grow exotic and low-maintenance cacti and succulents

Prevent insects, pests, and diseases from invading your containers

Featuring clear, concise, step-by-step instructions and sixteen pages of stunning color photos, Container Gardening For Dummies covers all the bases, including:

Opportunities and limitations of different climates

Ready-made versus homemade soil mixes, starting plants from seeds, and other fundamentals

Choosing, planting and caring for flowers, ferns, succulents, fruits, and vegetables

Expressing your sense of style with color, form, texture, proportion, and other design elements

Adding special effects to your container garden

Container Gardening For Dummies is a fun, informative guide for inexperienced city slickers and savvy country cousins alike.

Savor your best tomato harvest ever! Craig LeHoullier provides everything a tomato enthusiast needs to know about growing more than 200 varieties of tomatoes, from planting to cultivating and collecting seeds at the end of the season. He also offers a comprehensive guide to various pests and tomato diseases, explaining how best to avoid them. With beautiful photographs and intriguing tomato profiles throughout, Epic Tomatoes celebrates one of the most versatile and delicious crops in your garden.

In Gardening with Nature, James van Sweden shows home gardeners and professionals how to conceive, design, build, and plant the romantic gardens for which he is renowned. In Part 1, van Sweden describes formative influences and outlines his credo: bold, massed, asymmetrical plant groupings, reverence for site, low maintenance, and attention to all seasons. Part 2 explores design strategies and then embarks on a garden tour to show the rationale behind specific plant choices and design decisions. Part 3, "Planting Your Garden Step-by Step, " gives the nuts and bolts and hundreds of useful tips, and Part 4, "Favorite Plants, " offers a short, illustrated glossary of plants photographed in garden settings.

Learn how to transform your yard into a beautiful landscape using native plants!

You don't have to compromise beauty for natural landscapes with ecological responsibility and sustainability. In master gardener Lynn Steiner's book Grow Native, you'll find guidance for planting stunning gardens using native species that support your local ecosystem. Organized in an easily accessible way, the book offers instructions for planting, maintenance instructions, helpful tips about soil, watering and fertilizing as well as gorgeous photography. With guidance about how to weave native plants into your landscape and replacing common ornamentals with natural plants, this book should have a place on every gardener's bookshelf.

Grow Nativecombines inspirational garden shots of native landscapes with plant specific chapters and photos. Topics covered include:

- Hardiness Zone Maps
- Inspiration Gallery: Gardens Full of Native Plants
- Why Grow Natives?
- What Do You Mean by "Native"?
- Lower Water Usage / Drought-Tolerant
- Hardier / Tougher
- Easier Care
- Sustainability
- And more

Additionally, sidebars throughout Naturescape offer pointers for attracting specific butterflies, birds, bees and other beneficials to your yard--all through plant selections.

The newest and most up-to-date plant-care reference; The book focuses on plant care needs for healthy, vibrant results; Identifies a specific plant group and addresses cultural requirements for a variety of the most widely grown species; Contains an A-Z listing of over 400 plants by both common and scientific names which makes finding a plant easy every time; Over 500 photographs.

What does your dream garden look like? Why not sketch it!

Dream, Draw, Design My Garden is the perfect inspirational sketchbook, idea book and guided journal for anyone wanting to draw and design their own landscape, yard, or garden! Enjoy the stimulating ideas and prompts for patterns, colors, details and design elements to help dreamers get motivated and get started. This playful book is meant to be a visual guide, not a technical handbook, so you can create until your garden is full and flourishing righ on the pages!

James Hobbs, whose quick sketching techniques were featured in The Art of Urban Sketching and the best selling Sketch Your World, will guide both experienced and amateur sketchers. The unfinished quality of his line drawings leave room for the reader to imagine how they would use it themselves, through different color interpretations or redrawing for their own purposes.

Whether you dream of an English rose garden, a desert rock garden, or a beautiful pondscape, Dream, Draw, Design My Garden will let your creativity grow!

Gardening is now the favorite leisure pastime in America. Homeowners are realizing the health benefits derived from gardening and the increase in their home's property value. This book contains easy-to-use advice on the top landscape plant choices.It also recommends specific varieties, and provides advice on how to plant, how to grow and how to care for the best plants.

Gardeners living in New York or New Jersey need this easy-to-use guide for year-round plant care!

If you're a passionate gardener and a resident of New York or New Jersey, there's a book you must acquire for your bookshelf: New York & New Jersey Month-by-Month Gardening. Falling in line with the Cool Springs Press gardening series, this book provides monthly gardening advice, written just for New York and New Jersey gardeners.

This gardeners' guide is organized according to calendar month--January through December. Each month is divided into the following categories: planning, planting, caring for plants, watering, fertilizing, and problem solving. Within those categories, gardeners will find the major plant groups (annuals, edibles, perennials, trees, lawn, and shrubs) covered in detail. Learn the proper time to plant your favorite bulbs and edibles, and find out how to plant bare-root trees. From planting perennials to coming up with a strategy for pest management, New York & New Jersey Month-by-Month Gardening guides readers through every major question that crops up.

With essential how-to information organized into helpful sidebars as well as step-by-step photos to illustrate technique, this book is a veritable road map for a year's worth of gardening tasks in this diverse region. Roll up your sleeves, gardeners, and prepare to get dirty!

From its fully illustrated, meticulously detailed directories of indoor plants to its inspiring ideas for using plants to enhance any setting, Indoor Plants makes it easy to turn a window sill, a corner, or even a whole room, into a delightful garden spot. 540 full-color photos and illustrations.

Discover how peace and tranquility have been tapped through the personal stories of ordinary people, ordinary gardens, and extraordinary spaces. As professional horticulturalists, as husband and wife, and now as authors, Michel and Judy Marcellot explore motivations to garden for peace, for balance, for relaxation, for contemplation, and to memorialize loved ones. Above all, they find joy expressed within and through gardening. Personal stories show how the simple act of gardening changed lives and individuals. The authors chronicle their own paths from naive and idealistic, back-to-the-earth entrepreneurs who wanted to "be of service to the planet, and have a good time doing it," to respected horticulturists and sought after speakers who still embody the same ideals as when they started out. Examples illustrate varied elements of sacred sites and suggest ways readers might create the sacred in their own gardens. Read on and see how ordinary gardeners can attain their own backyard bliss.

From the first name in lawns comes the last word on lawn care! This book brings you all the experience and insights of these foremost experts on growing the perfect lawn. Here you will find the secrets of success for your garden -- you will have fewer weeds and greener grass -- all explained in easy-to-follow steps. You will be amazed by how uncomplicated it is, and your neighbours will be asking you for your secrets.

Until now we've only caught glimpses of Tasha Tudor's landscape. In this gorgeous book, two of her friends, the garden writer Tovah Martin and the photographer Richard Brown, take us into the magical garden and then behind the scenes. As we revel in the bedlam of Johnny-jump-ups and cinnamon pinks, the intricacy of the formal peony garden, and the voluptuousness of her heirloom roses, we also learn Tasha's gardening secrets. How does she coax forth her finicky camellia blossoms in the dead of a Vermont winter? How does she train that fantastic topiary to model for her artwork? How can she keep her crown imperials from tumbling in the winds? Tasha's garden reflects a wealth of family lore, perfected through years and years of working the soil. We may be dazzled by the beauty of the garden, but we come away from this book with practical ideas about improving our own plots of land.

Secrets to growing big, juicy, prize-winning vegetables using common household products such as beer, dish soap, and cola are revealed in this book of gardening tricks, tips, and tonics. Beginning and experienced gardeners alike will learn easy but effective techniques for growing, protecting, storing, and saving vegetables, from asparagus and beets to rutabaga and zucchini. Topics include planning a plot; weeding, feeding, and watering; keeping plague and pests at bay; and harvesting and storage. The guide also reveals secrets for fighting fungus with molasses, wiping out weeds with a tonic of gin and vinegar, spreading wood ashes to grow a glorious garden, using herbs to protect against cabbage moths and carrot flies, and starting veggies in containers with coffee grounds.

Shows you how to refresh and cool your garden by adding a water feature. Whether you desire a serene pond, a playful fountain, a gentle stream, or even a tabletop container with miniature plants, we guide you through the step-by-step process. Choosing plants is easy. Just follow our recommended plant lists and select the best flowers and foliage to grow in your water garden. Also look for tips on stocking fish, attracting wildlife to your garden, and maintaining your water feature year-round. Inspiring photos and information on a variety of styles, shapes and sizes of fountains, pools, ponds and waterfalls.