Product Description

Every gardener loves perennials. Buy them and plant them, and most will flourish and even expand year after year. But in addition to reliability, perennials offer gardeners a wonderful opportunity to make a stunning visual statement in their home landscapes--if you know how to combine and arrange them. In The Perennial Gardener's Design Primer, Stephanie Cohen and Nancy Ondra, two top garden writers and teachers, offer fun, organized, and--most important--attainable advice on how to create gorgeous gardens using these beloved plants.

Cohen and Ondra walk the gardener step-by-step through the process of creating new gardens, as well as of bringing new life to gardens that have lost their luster. They explain how to pick perennials that suit the site by making the most of plant color, shape, size, and texture and how to create eye-catching plant combinations. Beautiful illustrations accompany the new garden plans, and stunning photographs capture how Cohen and Ondra have redesigned their own gardens. Throughout the book a lively dialogue between Cohen and Ondra encourages readers to experiment and to create their own satisfying designs.

The authors also offer down-to-earth design solutions for 20 specific types of gardens, including everything from a minimum maintenance garden to a more complex container garden, from planting a formal border to indulging in the controlled chaos of a cottage garden.

Whether you are breaking ground for a new garden, or revitalizing an existing bed, The Perennial Gardener's Design Primer can help every gardener achieve great results--year after year.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60000 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Garden design is less rule-bound than it once was, but many novices approach it with trepidation. By bringing a refreshingly relaxed attitude to a well-worn topic, Cohen and Ondra give it friendly appeal. Both are professional designers and private enthusiasts who believe "you don't really know a plant until you've killed it." Readers who follow their ample, practical advice are much more likely to create beautiful gardens than to kill many plants, and even experienced gardeners will pick up some tips. First, the authors "demystify" perennial design, explaining how to approach a project, choose plants, plan the design and add details for extra appeal. They then explain how to "put perennials to work," focusing on specific designs and including handsome color sketches, schematic plans and lush photographs. Each of their designs accomplishes a goal—solving a problem with site conditions (e.g., excessive shade or sun), achieving a desired color effect, maximizing seasonal impact—and comes with a detailed list of recommended plants and alternate selections. Finally, in the "From Theory to Practice" section, they document the two-year histories of a new border, a major expansion and a garden renovation. The conversational text and photographs comparing early plantings with second-year results are great confidence builders for neophytes. Helpful appendixes include a zone map, a comprehensive plant list in an easy-to-use chart format and a reading list.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Just when it seems there couldn't possibly be anything original to say on the subject of perennial-garden design, along come two authors with a breezy style, down-to-earth advice, and a refreshingly open approach to prove you wrong. Cohen and Ondra bring their lifelong personal and professional passion to the creation of a design manual that tells both the novice and experienced gardener what to do, what to use, and just about anything else one would need to know to create vivid designs. Presented in a conversational, understandable manner, the authors' liberal use of puns, quips, and catchy phrases also makes the book a joy to read. Especially helpful are 20 original, plant-by-numbers designs addressing a variety of garden challenges; and thoughtful information about garden renovation will be savored by new homeowners who have inherited someone else's mistakes, or established gardeners weary of their current landscaping. Plant charts, reading lists, and detailed descriptions of more than 475 perennials round out this welcome addition to any garden library. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Stephanie Cohen has received awards from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and Perennial Plant Association, and in 2000 she was named Garden Commentator of the Year by the American Nursery and Landscape Association. She lives in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.

Nancy J. Ondra is a freelance garden writer and editor who owned and operated a small rare-plant nursery for six years. She is the author or co-author of a dozen gardening books including Foliage: Astonishing Color and Texture Beyond Flowers, which won the 2008 Book Award from the American Horticultural Society); The Perennial Gardener’s Design Primer (winner of a 2006 Silver Award from the Garden Writers Association); and Grasses: Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design. She currently gardens on her own four acres in Pennsylvania; works as a horticulturist at Linden Hill Gardens in Pennsylvania; and contributes to two garden blogs: www.hayefieldhouse.com and www.gardeninggonewild.com.

Customer Reviews

20 plans for different kinds of gardens
Perennials may be put in their place using an organized design pattern and Stephanie Cohen's teaching background blends with nursery owner Nancy Ondra's experience with rare plants to make for an excellent set of design tips in Perennial Gardener's Design Primer. Here are 20 plans for different kinds of gardens, along with designer tips, checklists, and a list of recommended reliable perennials. Color photos and plenty of diagrams and charts pack life into a recommended gardener's planning guide.

Great Design Manual
I have purchased many Garden design books. I want something to just give me an idea and Ill go from there. This book does just that. The color ideas, what to plant with what. Has detailed sketched designs as well as many photographs of actual flower beds.
The quick reference Planning Chart has to be one of my favorite things about the book.
Would I buy it again? yes, I think I would

Perrennial Gardner's Design Primer
I have over 50 gardening books, but none of them compare to this one for gardening design. It has a wide variety of garden designs with exact directions for placement. The only drawback I see in this book is for southern gardners. I was not familiar w/all of the plants & I suspect most of them are for northern gardens.