Sarah R. (booktopia) reviewed on 1/20/2007

Helpful Score: 1

This companion volume to The Perennial Garden comprises an artful guide to ornamental garden design and maintenance. Here the authors focus on "woody perennial flowerstrees, shrubs, and vines that may be evergreen or deciduous, but whose woody stems, branches and trunks . . . are the skeletal structure on which nature hangs her annual, fresh green growth." Strategies for implementing a thematically cohesive yet unstylized landscape include plant selection and placement (the balanced juxtaposition of oppositesin texture, size, shape and color; the unifying pairing of similar foliage types; the dramatic use of distinctive shrubs at transitional junctions; working with existing land forms and indigenous vegetation) and "artistic" maintenance or pruning. Integral here are more than 120 pages of growth charts "designed to simplify the task of selecting plants"; "featured flowers of the month" (e.g., April, the crabapple); a hardiness-zone map; a common-name index; and a listing of mail-order sources. Extensive black-and-white illustrations supplement the text, while 79 color photographs vividly depict the "natural movements and rhythms of plants" that the gardener is encouraged to highlight.

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