Product Description

Which plants do best - and worst - in Greater Washignton and the Mid-Atlantic region? How do you transform a neglected yard into a wondrous garden while minimizing the need for check-writing, maintenance and toxic chemicals? How can you create a flowing landscape with breathtaking colors and forms that will enchant you year round, not just seperate flower beds that bloom briefly in spring or summer?

You'll find the answers to these questions - and many more - in this extraordinary guide, which is as masterfully written and beautifully illustrated as it is useful. Whether you have an urban backyard, a suburban landscape, a rural spread or an apartment balcony, this is your essential reference for gardening in Washington, Virginia, Maryland, and beyond. In addition to all the basics on soil composition, tools, drainage, pruning and the like, the guide provides what you need on an exceptional array of subjects.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #547944 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Adrain Higgins, garden editor and writer for The Washington Post's Home section, is a prize winning author whose work also has appeared in House and Garden, Garden Design, Horticulture and other publications. He is the author of The Secret Gardens of Georgetown.

Susan Davis is a painter, muralist and illustrator. Her art has graced the cover of The New Yorker magazine, the pages of The Washington Post and noted posters, including the official one for a presidential inauguration. She has illustrated a number of books.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Year-Round Garden

Once, After I wrote an article about the problems of deer eating plants, an animal lover called to complain that all gardeners were vain, and they had no right to grow those flowers for their own glory and then carp when a hungry Bambi showed up. She was right in one sense: More than a few gardeners are vain. They take great pride in their little Edens, and some are not above showing them off. She was mistaken, however, in believing it wrong to deter deer. How many people want deer in their homes?

The caller did not seem to understand that gardens are integral parts of our homes, essentially oudoor rooms. They are dinig rooms where we take our meals on patios and living rooms where we entertain guests and sometimes hold our weddings. They are playrooms for our children and bedrooms where we doze on hammocks. They are outside dens where we read books beneath trees and extensions of kitchens where we grow and gather vegetables and herbs. They are open-air studios where we design and nurture works of living art, punctuated with paths and ponds, gates and gazebos, benches and borders, and in the process nourish our souls.

This guide for Greater Washington and the Mid-Atlantic region is designed to help you develop and delight in the garden of your choice, whether you have an urban backyard, a suburban landscape, a rural spread or an apartment balcony. But it especially encourages you to think about creating a year-round garden, to look for the ornament of leaves, bark and berries as well as of flowers, to imagine blooms tucked amid a larger canvas of trees, shrubs, ground covers, herbs and ferns. In the process, you will discover many enchanting plants that appeal through three or four seasons, not just two weeks in spring.

Unfortunately, there is a lingering notion that gardening centers on flowers, arranged in individual beds. This idea first took hold in the 19th century, when gardeners also used dynamite to prepare planting holes. We no longer employ high explosives, but, alas, we still lean too much on seperate groupings of annuals like marigolds and ageratum, wax begonias and red salvias.

Gardens that rely less on fleeting floer displays and more on a year-round tapestry of plant forms and foliage are not only more rewarding aesthetically. They also have practical advantages, such as minimizing requirements for maintenance, for chemicals and for check-writing. A large fothergilla, for example, is not as showy as a rhodedendron that is briefly in flower, but its leaves will look clean and untroubled in high summer, it won't need chemical support, and its fall coloration will be breathtaking. By all means use forsythias, rhododendrons, azaleas or lilacs, but don't depend on them too heavily, especially not if you are sacrificing plants that provide longer-lasting joy.

Mindful of our busy lives and of the expense of gardening, the guide notes other ways as well to create low-maintenance paradises while holding down costs. This is just one reason, for example, why the book favors wonderful perennials that flower for long periods and, without much work by the gardener, are reborn year after year.

You also will find here other ways of avoiding chemicals. In Books and on radio, gardeners too often are encouraged to amek free use of herbicides and pesticides. this is an anachronism, not only because many gardeners today feel uncomfortable about damaging the environment but because there are less toxic alternatives, including horticultural oils, insecticidal soaps and beneficial parasites that devour bad bugs(it's a jungle out there). In addition, you can choose plants with natural resistance to pests and dieseases, or varieties and hybrids that have had those traits bred into them. This can make all the difference in escaping needless labor, bills and disappointments as well in reducing garden toxins.

Granted, certain plants -- modern roses, for example, or a collection of lilies or dahlias -- cannot be grown without chemical sprays. You should keep this in mind when choosing them. But if you have to employ chemicals for much of your garden to exist, something is wrong.

Although the guide is filled with recommendations, it seeks to avoid pedantic instruction. Some garden writers seem compelled to bark orders, insisting that if it is past noon on November 3 it is too late to plant daffodils. This is nonsense. Nor should you view our plant hardiness zones rigidly. Because climates within a zone can vary greatly, zone maps are imperfect tools for deciding what to grow. Gardens inside the Capital Beltway, with their low elevation and shelter against winter's northwest winds, for example, will do better with a fig or a camellia than those around Reston, Va.

All of us in the Mid-Atlantic region, however, are fortunate in having large repertoire of plants that thrive here - from northern plants such as sugar maples and lilacs to southern plants such as crape myrtles and osmanthus - a long growing season. The summers can be hot and steamy, and this sometimes makes plant and gardener a little edgy. On balance, though, it is a wonderful place for creating your own series of outdoor rooms.

If you are lucky, and millions are, the chore of tending the yard will then turn into the joy of nurturing a garden and of allowing the garden to nurture you back. You will embark on a long journey, uncertain of precisely where you might end up, but you can rest assured that it will be fun and enriching along the way. Think of this book as your travel guide.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful collection of pointers....
Adrian Higgins writes a weekly column for the Washington Post, and I have come to appreciate his warm and entertaining essays over the past few years. Higgins follows in Henry Mitchell's footsteps (one of the greatest gardening writers ever!!) and therefore has very large gardening shoes to fill. I don't think Higgins has the gardening acumen of his predecessor, nor does he have the wit, and he does seem to spend a great deal of time hobnobing with rich and famous gardeners whereas Henry was more down to earth--most of his columns were about his weekly efforts in his own patch. Nevertheless, I look forward to reading Higgins pieces.

Higgins shares current knowledge about new plants (plants that once could not be grown successfully in the Washington area that now can be grown here thanks to genetic engineering), as well as creative ideas about older plants--some never used in local gardens. For example, regarding the latter, this past he wrote a piece on the Hyssop, which some of us have in herb beds, and he recommends for the perennial bed because it can stand up to the heat and humidity of DC (greatly exaggerated by old thinking -- DC actually has a relatively nice climate, just loss of oxygen thanks to car/SUV engines). Unfortunately, his gardening ideas mostly extend to those with five acres to spare.

The essays in Higgins book are good but I would hesitate to describe it as the "ultimate" guide. The Mid-Atlantic area is comprised of a diverse range of growing conditions and it is difficult to generalize gardening tactics let alone ultimate techniques. Higgins is aware of the growing conditions, but the novice may find it difficult to keep the "facts" straight.

The altitude in the mid-Atlantic ranges from the mountains to the sea level, and from above and below the Mason-Dixon line. DC itself is located in the upper range of many plants that do well in zone 8 to the south (Crepe Myrtle) and in the lower range of plants that do well in zone 6 to the north (Peonies). However, if you go east you move into Zone 8 again and if you go west you enter Zone 6.

The soil composition of the area ranges from limestone (water in DC is very alkaline thanks to the Shenandoah Valley) to clay (Piedmont) to coastal sand. I've worked gardens in all these areas and found the combination of soil, water PH and weather patterns/temperture does not allow one to grow anything anywhere. In fact, if you live east of the fall line (approximately Route 1) and between Fredericksburg and mid-Jersey you'd be better off to read Allen Lacy's books.

Still, I don't want to discourage readers from using Higgin's book. Many of his ideas will work--the key is to buy the types of plants that like your growing conditions. Blueberries for example come in different varieties--some do well in cooler mountain areas and others along the sandy shore. You won't know if Higgins methods work until you try them. That's the key to gardening anyway--try-al and error.

Excellent Guide for DC-Area Gardening
If you live in the DC area, this is the gardening book to own--it is a practical, no nonsense guide. This book lists which specific varieties of plants thrive or do poorly in the DC Metro area. Most of my other gardening books gather dust while I take this one to the garden center.

The book does not have color illustrations, so if you do not know what a plant looks like, you will need look it up in another book or investigate it at the store.

A Great Reference Book
I bought this book three years ago when my gardening abilities were still beginner. It turned out to be a great, and helpful read back then, and a book I still pick up now and then to get Mr. Higgins opinion on plant choice.
I read Mr. Higgins column and online chats for the Post and find him to be informative and amusing.