Product Description

Season by season, veteran gardening writer and photographer Susan Roth lists the best plants for a landscape that brings pleasure 365 days of the year. An information-packed guide designed to help gardeners escape the dismal, colorless days of winter and the pervasive all-green days of summer. 68 illus. 10 color photos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #841623 in Books
• Published on: 1994-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 345 pages

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Approach to Landscaping
This book has a great approach to landscaping your property. Susan Roth shows how to make the most of your space by creating mixed borders--mixing trees, shrubs, perennials ans bulbs for year-round color and beauty. The idea is to start with a garden's "bones," to create the necessary structure that will make all seasons beautiful. Her plant selection is very good--only plants that provide more than one season make her list. For example a shrub that flowers in the summer, has good fall color, and interesting branches or berries in winter. I have many garden books, but I like Roth's approach and already the view from my kitchen window makes me feel good just to look at it.

My favorite...
My wife and I are building a new home on 2+ acres. Our current yard is sort of a four seasons approach, mostly by accident though.

So I purchased a dozen or so books here at amazon to plan the new yard. This one is definitely the best. The approach and suggestions are super. I can really see us doing most of our yard using these suggestions. Thank you Susan! Bob.

A truly helpful reference
This book is arranged seasonally; each season has its own chapter. Within each of these chapters are various charts suggesting trees, shrubs, perennials, etc. that offer interesting features during that season. Some of the chapters break it down further: for instance, the "Spring" chapter has different charts for early spring, mid-spring and late spring.

Near the beginning of the book is a wonderful section on how to put together a "planting pyramid" for four-season interest. (Hint: You don't start with annuals or even perennials, as so many beginning gardeners do.) Additional design principles and suggestions are found after the "season" chapters.

Finally, the book closes with a limited "encyclopedia" of four-season plants which includes some suggested cultivars, cultural details for the plants, what seasons the plant holds particular interest, etc. This section is divided into deciduous trees, evergreen trees, deciduous shrubs, evergreen shrubs, perennials, etc.

In all, even if you don't have time to read all of the text, which is a pleasure in and of itself...this author is a good writer...there is still a wealth of helpful information to be found in this book.