Beautiful No-Mow Yards: 50 Amazing Lawn Alternatives

In this ultimate guide to rethinking one's yard, Hadden showcases dozens of inspiring, eco-friendly alternatives to that demanding (and dare we say boring?) green turf. From a lively prairie to a runoff-reducing rain garden, award-winning author Hadden shows readers how to convert their yards.
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Creative Concrete Ornaments for the Garden: Making Pots, Planters, Birdbaths, Sculpture & More

Sherri Warner Hunter, author of the bestselling "Creating with Concrete," proves once again that concrete isn't just for sidewalks anymore; it's perfect for the garden too. A selection of 30 beautiful designs suggests the range of this increasingly popular material, and the illustrated instructions make the craft's fundamentals easy to learn. The simplest projects come first, so beginners can work their way through the book progressively, building on their skills. Projects include a carved trough, sandcast bowl, elegant relief panel, and--for more skilled crafters--a decorative walkway, sculpture, and water feature.
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The Timber Press Encyclopedia of Flowering Shrubs

Rich attributes including vibrant color, fragrance, and sheer variety of form make flowering shrubs the most rewarding of garden plants, but this vast group with its scores of tempting plants -- including abutilons, camellias, viburnums, and witch hazels -- requires careful navigation. Leading expert on woody plants Jim Gardiner has distilled several decades of knowledge and experience into "The Timber Press Encyclopedia of Flowering Shrubs," an incomparable pictorial reference of hardy shrubs that excel in temperate-zone gardens.
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Stand Up and Garden

Stand Up and Garden shows how everyone can garden, including those with physical limitations like arthritis or location limitations like apartment-dwellers without backyards. Imagine harvesting radishes, carrots, and strawberries in the spring; herbs, tomatoes, and cucumbers all through the summer; beets, spinach, and even potatoes in autumn. By focusing on containers, trellises, and raised beds, Master Gardener Mary Moss-Sprague has improved upon traditional gardening by developing ways to grow plants that produce large amounts of food enough for canning and other preservation in small vertical spaces.
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Better Homes and Gardens Orchid Gardening

A complete guide for planning, planting, and caring for orchids
"Better Homes and Gardens(R) Orchid Gardening" makes it simple to grow and maintain gorgeous orchids year-in and year-out. Even if you've never grown an orchid, this straightforward and comprehensive guide for people of all gardening skill levels will show you how to get it right the first and every time.
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Wildflower Wonders: The 50 Best Wildflower Sites in the World

Library Journal (11/15/2011):
Photographer and naturalist Gibbons has created a stunning guide to the best wildflower sites in the world. His criteria are spectacular beauty, diversity, and accessibility; infrequent and annual, desert, and alpine flowers are included, while difficult to visit, short-lived, and small sites and those with limited species are not featured. The greatest emphasis is on Europe (particularly Italy, France, and Greece), followed by the United States, Africa, Asia, and Australasia. Each location is accompanied by at least two photographs, a map, and at-a-glace highlights. Gibbons offers reasons to go (e.g., exceptionally colorful early spring flowers and quartz fields with "living stones"), timing recommendations, and information on protected statuses, and he concludes with useful contacts for each country, including tour companies that will help you get there (many locations are quite remote). There's also an excellent bibliography and a species list that gives both common and Latin names. VERDICT The superior photographs, in-depth information, and inclusive species list will be valuable to flower-loving travelers of every sort.—Susan G. Baird, formerly with Oak Lawn P.L., IL Copyright 2011 Reed Business Information.
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Petal & Twig: Seasonal Bouquets with Blossoms, Branches, and Grasses from Your Garden

Forcing flowers to stand up and do tricks is the old way of flower bouquets. That called for flying in blossoms from around the world. The new way is so much more DIY and all about what's happening in the garden right now--no matter the season. "Petal and Twig" is full of photographs and descriptions of wonderfully fresh combinations from garden-expert Valerie Easton's own garden. With an inviting and personal tone, Easton shows how to assemble floral combinations for color, for fragrance, to express the essence of the season, for the dinner table, for the kitchen, for the bookshelf. Inspiration, experimentation, and simple pleasure are the keys the new bouquets.
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Small Plot, Big Harvest

Aimed at both urban and suburban gardeners with small plots, who want to be part of the grow-your-own phenomenon, "Small Plot, Big Harvest" celebrates what the vast majority of people have -- a little bit of patio or garden that is precious to them.
With at-a-glance crop planners, step-by-step gardening techniques -- such as preparing soil, sowing, planting, watering, feeding, and growing under cover -- and instructions and charts showing when to sow and when to harvest, "Small Plot, Big Harvest" brings foolproof vegetable growing for gardeners with little space.
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Natural Companions: The Garden Lover's Guide to Plant Combinations

In Natural Companions, acclaimed garden writer Ken Druse presents recipes for perfect plant pairings using diverse species that look great together and bloom at the same time. Organized by theme within seasons, topics include color, fragrance, foliage, grasses, edible flowers and much more, all presented in photographs of gardens that show planted combinations from a wide variety of climates and conditions. Natural Companions also features more than one hundred special botanical images of amazing depth and color created in collaboration with artist Ellen Hoverkamp using modern digital technology. Filled with an incredible amount of horticultural guidance, useful plant recommendations, and gardening lore--all written in Druse's charming, witty style--this book is a must-have for gardeners and lovers of plants and flowers.
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Gardening: The Complete Guide

"Gardening: The Complete Guide" will satisfy those readers who enjoy the process of gardening as much as the finished product. It contains equal parts of inspirational photographs and hands-on instructional pictures. The book presents the latest gardening techniques for the 21st century gardener with an emphasis on time-saving, efficient practices. There is considerable space devoted to growing herbs, flowers, vegetables, and fruit. This book is perfect for the gardener who wants to know how things grow and why certain practices are more effective.
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Landscaping Solutions for Small Spaces: 10 Smart Plans for Designing and Planting Small Gardens

Landscaping Solutions for Small Spaces - Turn your small garden or yard into a showplace by adapting these custom landscape designs.- Change your garden into a multifunctional landscaped space by using plants and structures to create separate areas for relaxing and entertaining.- Create interest in your landscape with distinctive planters, glamorous lighting, and soothing water features.
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Thrifty Gardening: From the Ground Up

Bestselling author and gardening columnist Marjorie Harris offers a timely and entertaining guide for gardeners at every stage of life. Whether you're moving into your first apartment or condo, upgrading to a house, or downsizing to smaller digs, Harris shares the best tips on how to create a beautiful garden for any space -- all on a budget.
The highly anticipated sequel to her popular book "Thrifty: Living the Frugal Life with Style," "Thrifty Gardening" marries Harris's passion for gardening with her thrifty lifestyle savvy so that everyone can create a natural oasis whatever their living situation is -- and without breaking the bank.
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Planting the Dry Shade Garden: The Best Plants for the Toughest Spot in Your Garden

Award-winning author Rice has written more than 20 books that speak to gardeners on both sides of the Atlantic. He tackles the garden's heart of darkness: dry shade, the space under trees or overhangs where plants go to die from lack of light and water. This man has ideas to change that; his experience includes training at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, which has plenty of trees casting shade. He goes into detail that helps gardeners better understand the situation and possible solutions: not all shade is the same; some mulches are better than others. The heart of the book profiles more than 130 plants that are made in the shade. Little is written on this common and trying garden condition, as his reading list indicates, so Rice fills a need. Owners of shaded gardens, rejoice. Includes 125 color photos. (Aug.) Copyright 2011 Reed Business Information.
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The Art of Creative Pruning: Inventive Ideas for Training and Shaping Trees and Shrubs

Imaginative pruning and shaping of living plants can create landscapes, evoke far off places and memories, . . . surprise and even shock, with interconnected species resulting not in defined categories but rather a family tree, or a map of a river system of endless tributaries, flood plains . . . or . . . some vast web of interconnected strands. In smoothly flowing, evocative text, Hobson introduces recent approaches to topiary, ranging from an amateur's gravity-free South Carolina garden to the professionally developed, extraordinary topiary in the French Marqueyssac Garden, captured poetically in the early morning fog. Deciduous hedges segue from screens to architecture: arches forming gateways, buttresses creating seating bays, crenelated battlements defining fortifications, and sophisticated, bare-trunked, raised hedges elegantly lining a garden thoroughfare. Hobson presents examples of Asian aesthetics that involved microcosms of nature created without removing plants from their natural state, as with Western pruning, but instead manipulating and enhancing that natural state. A love affair with living sculpture, this coffee-table book exceeds expectations with how-to diagrams, tips on maintenance and tools, and a list of references accompanying genuinely breathtaking full-color photos.
(Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
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The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible: How to Grow a Bounty of Food in Pots, Tubs, and Other Containers

Anyone can grow, harvest, and enjoy homegrown veggies, even without a yard, bestselling garden guru Smith persuasively argues as he presents his step-by-step approach to container gardening. A garden of containers, pots, buckets, and found objects can stand alone or complement an earth garden, with some advantages, including ease of tending, portability, and fewer insect and disease problems. From soil formulas and layouts for three-container gardens on small balconies and porches to transforming five-gallon plastic buckets into self-watering containers, developing artful arrangements, and pruning, Smiths bible will encourage many new vegetable growers. Useful tips for hanging containers to maximize use of vertical space on patios, grouping plants of similar mature sizes and growth rates, and using organic controls are presented as attractive endeavors, beautifully documented in numerous full-color, full-page photos. With an index, suggested reading list, average last-frost dates and hardiness zone maps, and listings of suppliers, Smiths practical, assuring, timely, and handsomely produced how-to will see brisk traffic.(Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
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Small-Space Container Gardens: Transform Your Balcony, Porch, or Patio with Fruits, Flowers, Foliage, and Herbs

You don't need a yard in the suburbs to surround yourself with homegrown beauty and produce. Richardson, writer of an award-winning blog about gardening in tiny spaces, offers a comprehensive approach to getting started on a balcony or wee patio. The book is organized by principles (color, weather, wildlife, pests, etc.), which is particularly helpful for those just starting container gardening. For them, the book is filled with resources: planting schemes, do-it-yourself projects, short appendixes. Those with more gardening experience may find the plants Richardson highlights limiting. The authors attention to succulents is distinctive; those forgiving plants lend themselves to the container gardening environment. Gardeners living in less mild climates than Richardson's Southern California should remember that whatever is too delicate to winter outside must be hauled indoors for the duration, taking up what might be precious limited space. That said, container gardening is flexible, and Richardson makes it verdant, affordable, and fun. 150 color photos. (Feb.) Copyright 2012 Reed Business Information.
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Small Is Bountiful: Getting More Crops from Your Pots

Imagine the satisfaction of diving into a plate full of food that you grew yourself. Stepping out onto your patio and picking fresh ingredients for a meal is a special experience that is possible almost all year long. "Small Is Bountiful" shows you how to use the latest practices of high-density patio gardening to grow a cornucopia of mouthwatering fruits, delectable vegetables, and fresh herbs in large and small plant containers, window boxes, and hanging baskets.
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Gardening Made Simple: The Complete Step-By-Step Guide to Gardening

Gardening Made Simple is a comprehensive step-by-step guide to creating beautiful gardens, including all the basics of planting, growing, and caring for trees, shrubs, flowers, fruits, vegetables, lawns and other greenery. With plenty of clear and explanatory full-color photographs, it gives beginners the inspiration and simple guidance they need to achieve their green-thumb dreams.
A helpful introductory section covers basic tools and techniques and shows you how to choose the right garden plans and plants for your Zone, prepare your soil, manage pests, and prune, mulch, fertilize, and water with ease.

• 65 step-by-step gardening projects
• 145 easy-to-grow plants
• Sections on container gardening, growing your own vegetables, fruits, and herbs, flower gardening, landscaping with trees, shrubs, vines, and groundcovers, and foolproof houseplants
• 1,200 color photographs throughout, including step-by-step photos and shots of finished projects, as well as colorful illustrations and easy plant-by-number diagrams
• Ask the Garden Doctor question-and-answer content
• "Better Homes and Gardens" Test Garden tips throughout

No matter your gardening experience and skill level, "Gardening Made Simple" provides the inspiration, insight, and advice you need to grow the garden of your dreams.
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Landscaping for Privacy: Innovative Ways to Turn Your Outdoor Space Into a Peaceful Retreat

The area around your home is your haven, your sanctuary, your refuge from the noise and irritation of traffic, eyesores, and nosy neighbors. Or at least it could be if there was some sort of barrier between your front yard and the sidewalk, or if you didn't have to stare at the back of the neighbors' garage when you want to relax on your patio.
"Landscaping for Privacy" brims with creative ideas for minimizing or even eliminating the nuisances that intrude on your personal outdoor space. Scores of real-world examples show you how to keep the outside world at bay by strategically placing buffers (such as berms or groups of small trees), barriers (such as fences), and screens (arbors or hedges, for example) around your property. And the helpful plant lists tell you precisely which varieties to choose in order to enhance your sense of seclusion.
If you've ever felt frustrated by the lack of privacy whenever you step outside your home, this inspiring book will steer you toward an achievable solution.
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Better Homes and Gardens Water Gardens

"The complete guide to water gardens, from ponds and pools to streams, fountains, waterfalls, rain gardens, bog gardens, and more"

There's nothing more calming than a beautiful, tranquil water garden and now, it's easier than ever to plan and create your own water garden at home. "Better Homes and Gardens(R) Water Gardening" gives you dozens of projects, complete with handy shopping lists, plant-by-number plans, and easy-to-follow instructions to guide you from inspiration to completion.
You'll find comprehensive chapters covering all the basics of water gardening, including tips on selecting materials, simple installation techniques, basic maintenance steps, and much more.

• More than 325 gorgeous color photos throughout, including step-by-step photos to guide you through the critical steps in projects
• Helpful seasonal-care charts and an encyclopedic listing of water garden and companion plants to help you easily identify where they grow best and how to care for them
• An entire chapter of plant-by-number water garden plans that are easy and simple to make, as well as tips from the Better Homes and Gardens Garden Doctor throughout

With this comprehensive, easy-to-use guide, creating your own beautiful, soothing water garden at home has never been easier.
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Northeast Home Landscaping

Northeast Home Landscaping" shows how to beautify 27 common landscape situations, such as front and back entries, walkways, borders, slopes, and patios. 54 design variations incorporate more than 200 of the best plants for the region. Readers also learn all they need to know to install the paths, fences, walls, arbors, and trellises that make up the designs. Step-by-step instructions show how to tackle each project. Plant descriptions also explain planting and care.
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Deck Ideas That Work

For homeowners building new decks or upgrading existing ones, or for builders and remodeling contractors looking for new ideas for their clients, this most complete and up-to-date book is packed with more than 300 inspiring photographs along with hundreds of design solutions and topnotch advice to help inform smart decisions.
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