A Garden for Life: The Natural Approach to Designing, Planting, and Maintaining a North Temperate Garden
by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
from University of Michigan Press/Regional
The avid gardener will need no other resource than this book to plan and maintain a natural garden on the country farm or in the suburban backyard, a habitat congenial to the scarlet tanager, the monarch butterfly, and the toad.
Unique to this book is author Beresford-Kroeger's concept of bioplanning, in which the gardener views the site as a biological system and the activity of gardening as an ecological task. To assist in bioplanning a garden, the author provides both plans that are adaptable to different garden sizes and shapes, as well as planting instructions emphasizing organic care, ecofunction, and environmentally friendly means of pest control.
A Garden for Life challenges everyone to create an ecologically valuable garden for the joy of doing so, and for the salvation of our natural world.
Diana Beresford-Kroeger is the author of Arboretum America. She is a botanist, medical and agricultural researcher, lecturer, and self-defined "renegade scientist" in the fields of classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic chemistry, and nuclear chemistry. She lives in Ontario, Canada.
Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)
by Dave Jacke
from Chelsea Green
Edible Forest Gardens is a groundbreaking two-volume work that spells out and explores the key concepts of forest ecology and applies them to the needs of natural gardeners in temperate climates. Volume I lays out the vision of the forest garden and explains the basic ecological principles that make it work. In Volume II, Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier move on to practical considerations:concrete ways to design, establish, and maintain your own forest garden. Along the way they present case studies and examples, as well as tables, illustrations, and a uniquely valuable "plant matrix" that lists hundreds of the best edible and useful species.
Taken together, the two volumes of Edible Forest Gardens offer an advanced course in ecological gardening-one that will forever change the way you look at plants and your environment.
What is an edible forest garden?
An edible forest garden is a perennial polyculture of multipurpose plants. Most plants regrow every year without replanting: perennials. Many species grow together: a polyculture. Each plant contributes to the success of the whole by fulfilling many functions: multipurpose. In other words, a forest garden is an edible ecosystem, a consciously designed community of mutually beneficial plants and animals intended for human food production. Edible forest gardens provide more than just a variety of foods. The seven F's apply here: food, fuel, fiber, fodder, fertilizer, and "farmaceuticals," as well as fun. A beautiful, lush environment can be a conscious focus of your garden design, or a side benefit you enjoy
Fallscaping: Extending your Garden Season into Autumn
by Nancy J. Ondra
from Storey Publishing, LLC
Why should the joys of puttering in the garden be relegated to spring and summer when autumn has so much to offer? Enjoyable temperatures and more dependable rainfall in much of the country extend the growing season and allow the gardener to spend more time enjoying the garden and less time watering. Those final splendid months before winter's chill offer hospitable conditions for an impressive array of flowers, foliage, berries, and seedheads.
Nancy J. Ondra and Stephanie Cohen, two top garden writers and teachers, team up to show readers how to achieve three-season garden color. Join them on a detailed tour through dozens of plants that bring life and color to late-season gardens. Ondra and Cohen identify all the key fall-specific players and explain how to combine them with multiseason workhorse plants to create gardens that move gracefully from spring through the riotous days of summer and into autumn's golden weeks.
Ten complete garden plans put everything together for autumn-loving gardeners. Particularly stunning in the fall but designed to deliver multiseason appeal, they cover a range of growing conditions and color themes. The authors wrap up the season (and the book) with a garden care calendar featuring tips and techniques on how to plant, prune, and maintain gardens all season long so they remain glorious throughout the fall, as well as dozens of suggestions for how to prepare gardens for winter.
Month-By-Month Gardening in Washington & Oregon: What To Do Each Month To Have A Beautiful Garden All Year (Month-By-Month Gardening in Washington & Oregon)
by Mary Robson
from Cool Springs Press
The Month-by-Month guides offer valuable advice on the proper timing of gardening maintaining activities for each month. Month-by-Month Gardening in Washington and Oregon is one of the first titles of the redesigned series from Cool Springs Press.
Top features include:
- 4-color photography and illustrations to demonstrate cultural practices
- Covers all major plant categories
- Specific advice for every month of the year
Month-by-Month Gardening in Texas: Revised Edition: What to Do Each Month to Have a Beautiful Garden All Year (Month-By-Month Gardening in Texas)
by Dan Gill
from Cool Springs Press
The Month-by-Month™ series offer valuable advice on the proper timing of garden maintainance activities for each month. Month-By-Month™ Gardening in Texas is one of the first titles of the redesigned series from Cool Springs Press.
Top features include:
- 4-color photography and line-drawing illustrations to demonstrate cultural practices
- Covers all major plant categories
- Specific advice for every month of the year
- Updated edition includes text revisions, additional reference materials, and a new design.
Cold-Climate Gardening: How to Extend Your Growing Season by at Least 30 Days
by Lewis Hill
from Storey Publishing, LLC
Early and late frosts, arctic winds, and inhospitable terrain are just a few of the obstacles facing those who garden in the icebox region of the United States and Canada. Lewis Hill has spent a lifetime in northern Vermont, and is undaunted by the challenges of weather and climate. His system for how to garden more and better in the time that you do have is covered in this extensive 308-page guide. Cold-Climate Gardening has much information that will prove invaluable to northern gardeners: how to grow food, how to landscape, techniques to employ that will protect vulnerable plantings, how to warm up the soil earlier, and which species are appropriate to your area. Not just for those who live in the snow belt, this book will also be useful to those who garden in microclimates (such as deep valleys or hillsides) or for those who want to extend their gardening season in any climate. Horticulture has deemed it "an immensely useful book,...written with style, wit, and clarity...." You wil
Palms Won't Grow Here and Other Myths: Warm-Climate Plants for Cooler Areas
by David A. Francko
from Timber Press, Incorporated
Palms that grow in Canada? Bananas that overwinter in Michigan? How about southern crape myrtles that flower in Birmingham, England, instead of Birmingham, Alabama? Although the voice of authority --- and nursery labels --- might say, "You can't grow those plants here," author Dave Francko has a different message for gardeners: "Plants can't read the information on their tags." Laced with humorous anecdotes and based on years of first-hand observations and research, this book provides real-world information to help adventurous gardeners grow plants they never before dreamed possible. Nobody who reads this book will ever look at a plant label the same way again.
Palms that grow in Canada? Bananas that overwinter in Michigan? Although the voice of authority might say, "You can't grow those plants here," author Dave Francko says: "Plants can't read the information on their tags." Based on years of first-hand observations and research, this book provides real-world information to help adventurous gardeners grow plants they never before dreamed possible.
Organic Gardening in Cold Climates
by Sandra Perrin
from Mountain Press Publishing Company
For more than thirty years Sandra Perrin has gardened year-round in Montana, learning to adapt to cold weather. Consumer demand encouraged her to update this popular gardening book, adding new hardy varieties and time-tested hints. Among other things, you will learn how to store carrots in the ground for winter harvesting, fry zucchini &flowers, and ripen green tomatoes. So get ready to dig! Organic gardening is not only healthy for the body but also, in Perrin's words, "good for the soul."
Month-by-Month Gardening in Georgia: Revised Edition: What to Do Each Month to Have a Beautiful Garden All Year (Month-By-Month Gardening in Georgia)
by Erica Glasener
from Cool Springs Press
- Takes the fear and guesswork out of gardening
- Provides an achievable plan for gardening success for beginners and experienced alike
Dirr's Trees and Shrubs for Warm Climates: An Illustrated Encyclopedia
by Michael A. Dirr
from Timber Press, Incorporated
Following the phenomenal success of Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, written for gardeners in the climates of USDA zones 3-6, this companion volume is a superlative photographic encyclopedia of trees, shrubs, and vines for "warm temperate" zones. In North America, these areas (zones 7-11) stretch from the Mid-Atlantic states to the South, include most of Texas and the Southwest, and encompass the entire West Coast, up to western Canada. Many parts of the British Isles, Australia, and New Zealand experience similar conditions. In a nutshell, any gardener who lives in an area where average winter temperatures do not fall below 0° Fahrenheit (-18° Celsius) will want this book, and curious gardeners in colder zones may well want to test these select plants in their local microclimates. This remarkable volume shows both the habit and details-flower, fruit, bark, fall color-of more than 400 species and describes hundreds more cultivars and varieties. Certain genera offer myriad hybrids and selections, and photographs of many of the best of these are included as well-nearly 40 named crapemyrtles, a dozen teaolives, and 11 loropetalums. In all, more than 1400 photographs join with the authoritative text to bring the plants to life. From Abelia to Ziziphus, gardeners will encounter many new and unfamiliar plants that thrive in warmer climates. Dirr gives special attention to hardy palms that can survive outside the subtropics. The book also reflects the author's inimitable personality, which holds nothing back when a plant deserves outright acclaim ("If prescriptions could be written for perfect garden plants, this species would come close to filling the order"), backhanded praise ("Use for accent, for novelty, or to drive visitors loony"), or frank condemnation ("Splays to the point of no redemption with time"). The book concludes with useful lists for selecting plants for a variety of conditions or for ornamental characteristics, such as flower color and fragrance, fruit, and fall color.
Following the phenomenal success of Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, written for gardeners in the climates of USDA zones 3 to 6, this companion volume is a superlative photographic encyclopedia of trees, shrubs, and vines for "warm temperate" zones.
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