Designed to be used as a companion to Xeriscape Plant Guide, this book helps gardeners and landscapers design colorful, practical and water-wise environments.
Carefully selected plants add color, character, and charm to a wide variety of outdoor settings, providing much enjoyment and increasing the value of your home. Plants for Tropical Landscapes will help you select and group plants to create a successful tropical garden tailored to your needs and tastes. Gardeners and landscapers will find this treasury of more than 500 common plants easy to use and one of the most comprehensive guides available today. Plants are organized by size (ground covers, low shrubs, medium shrubs, small trees) and are fully illustrated with more than 700 color photographs to aid in their identification. The book presents guidelines on plant characteristics, soil and water requirements, and suggested landscape use for each species. In addition, appendices list plants suitable for special uses (xeriscapes, windbreaks, night gardens) and sites (beach gardens, lanai, and houseplants).
Xeriscape, or low-water, landscaping will define gardening in the 21st century. Xeriscape has currency in every area of the country experiencing drought or lowered water tables. This guide outlines the principles of low-water landscaping and the practicalities of transforming a landscape. Endorsed by the National Xeriscape Council.
“Fear deer no more! The best source I’ve seen on the topic!” —Tracy DiSabato-Aust, award-winning garden designer and best-selling author Deer are one of the most common problems a gardener can face. These cute but pesky animals can quickly devour hundreds of dollars’ worth of plants. And common solutions include the use of unattractive fencing and chemicals. In Deer-Resistant Design, Karen Chapman offers another option—intentional design choices that result in beautiful gardens that coexist with wildlife. Deer-Resistant Design showcases real home gardens across North America—from a country garden in New Jersey to a hilltop hacienda in Texas—that have successfully managed the presence of deer. Each homeowner also shares their top ten deer-resistant plants, all welcome additions to a deer-challenged gardeners shopping list. A chapter on deer-resistant container gardens provides suggestions for making colorful, captivating, and imaginative containers. Lushly illustrated and filled with practical advice and inspiring design ideas, Deer-Resistant Design is packed with everything you need to confidently tackle this challenging problem.
First published in 1995, this invaluable guide to the trees, shrubs, ground covers, and smaller plants that thrive in New Mexico’s many life zones and growing areas is now available in a long-awaited new edition. Landscape architect Baker H. Morrow considers the significant factors that impact planting in New Mexico—including soil conditions, altitude, drought, urban expansion, climate change, and ultraviolet radiation—to provide the tools for successful gardens and landscapes in the state. Added photographs and sketches identify the forms and uses of plants, including many new species that have become widely available in the region since the 1990s. The latest recommendations for specific cities and towns include more photos for ease of reference, and botanical names have also been updated. With ingenuity and efficient water management, Morrow demonstrates how to create landscapes that provide shade, color, oxygen, soil protection, windscreening, and outdoor enjoyment.
Create a yard that is pleasing in design and usefulness, yet low in maintenance and not another threat to our fragile environment. Everything you need to know about xeriscaping.
Because nature is so expansive and complex, so varied in its range of light, landscape painters often have to look further and more deeply to find form and structure, value patterns, and an organized arrangement of shapes. In Landscape Painting, Mitchell Albala shares his concepts and practices for translating nature's grandeur, complexity, and color dynamics into convincing representations of space and light. Concise, practical, and inspirational, Landscape Painting focuses on the greatest challenges for the landscape artist, such as: • Simplification and Massing: Learn to reduce nature's complexity by looking beneath the surface of a subject to discover the form's basic masses and shapes.• Color and Light: Explore color theory as it specifically applies to the landscape, and learn the various strategies painters use to capture the illusion of natural light.• Selection and Composition: Learn to select wisely from nature's vast panorama. Albala shows you the essential cues to look for and how to find the most promising subject from a world of possibilities. The lessons in Landscape Painting—based on observation rather than imitation and applicable to both plein air and studio practice—are accompanied by painting examples, demonstrations, photographs, and diagrams. Illustrations draw from the work of more than 40 contemporary artists and such masters of landscape painting as John Constable, Sanford Gifford, and Claude Monet. Based on Albala's 25 years of experience and the proven methods taught at his successful plein air workshops, this in-depth guide to all aspects of landscape painting is a must-have for anyone getting started in the genre, as well as more experienced practitioners who want to hone their skills or learn new perspectives.