The Right-Size Flower Garden: Simplify Your Outdoor Space with Smart Design Solutions and Plant Choices - Hardcover

Mendez, Kerry Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 098926887X ISBN 13: 9780989268875

Publisher: St. Lynn's Press, 2015

Synopsis

Today, the reality of a “bigger is better” garden no longer holds the same allure as a “small is beautiful” one. We’re busy, we’re aging, and the demands of the garden can feel overwhelming. What to do? Make smarter use of the space we have and the plants we select, says garden expert Kerry Ann Mendez. In The Right-Size Flower Garden, she shares her successful recipe for having a garden we can manage and love again...the right-size, low maintenance, drought tolerant garden. The goal is ditching 50% of the work by choosing high-value plants and making simple design changes. You’ll learn which plants to switch out, which ones aren’t worth the effort, and which tools and practices will take the “chore” out of gardening. The Right-Size Flower Garden is filled with beautiful full-color photos, practical tips, “plant this not that” lists, and valuable shortcuts to success.

About this title

About the Author

Kerry Ann Mendez is the owner of Perennially Yours, a landscaping company focusing on the art of low-maintenance perennial gardening. Perennially Yours gardens have been featured in numerous garden and lifestyle magazines, newspapers, radio and television shows. Mendez is the author of The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Top Ten Lists and Top Ten Lists for Beautiful Shade, and is the founder of the annual Great Gardens and Landscaping Symposiums at the Equinox Resort in Vermont. A busy lecturer and teacher, she gives over 25 workshops and 60-70 talks yearly. She recently hosted 6 national webinars for Horticulture magazine. www.pyours.com.

Review

"The Right-Size Flower Garden: Simplify Your Outdoor Space with Smart Design Solutions and Plant Choices" (St. Lynn's Press) is a guide for garden enthusiasts and "plantaholics" who find they have more than they can handle in their landscapes. The culprit, typically, is overplanting, choosing the wrong plants ― or simply the advance of time. (Kari Richardson Chicago Tribune)

The pretty pictures we're used to are here in Mendez' book, including befores-and-afters of her own right-sized perennial beds. She also suggests plants for easy care or best use of small space as well as fussy, time-sucking plants to avoid.

But if you're wondering how to simplify and where to begin, Mendez will talk you through it like a kind friend. And that, as La Martha might say, is a good thing. (Helen & Sarah Battersby Toronto Gardens)

The Right-Size Flower Garden by Kerry Ann Mendez (St. Lynn's Press) is liberating. Many of us want gorgeous landscaping, bountiful veggie gardens and yards that make our neighbors jealous. Often we spend an extraordinary amount of time and money to obtain those results. When we fall short, we become disappointed and the yard doesn't look its best. (We have all said, "That used to be a great yard until the new people moved in.")
Mendez suggests admitting you may not have the desire or energy to maintain the garden you think you should have. (Jill Sell Cleveland Plain Dealer)

The Right-size Flower Garden isn't an encyclopedia of plants for a low-maintenance garden. It's a hand-holding workbook that encourages over-gardeners to prune, pluck and otherwise eliminate the most likely culprits that enslave us. (Jean Starr Petal Talk)

The book, "The Right-Size Flower Garden," provides excellent suggestions to simplify the garden by selecting the right plants and using a few smart gardening techniques. (Sue Kittek The Morning Call)

It’s the right idea at the right time for boomers and others who still love to garden – or spend time outdoors – but don’t have the time (or healthy backs) to keep up their former hectic pace. (Debbie Arrington The Sacramento Bee)

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Lynn's Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 098926887X
• ISBN 13: 9780989268875
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192