The Low-Maintenance Garden: A Complete Guide to Designs, Plants and Techniques for Easy-care Gardens - Hardcover

Berry, Susan; Bradley, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1552095142 ISBN 13: 9781552095140

Publisher: Firefly Books, 2000

Synopsis

Essential reading for those who desire a beautiful garden without the back-breaking work, The Low-Maintenance Garden is the guide to enjoying your garden rather than spending hours toiling in it. This book shows how to minimize and simplify gardening tasks, and over time create a virtually maintenance-free garden.

Packed with planting plans, charts, ideas and step-by-step techniques for minimizing work, The Low-Maintenance Garden is beautifully laid out with easy-to-access information for every type and size of garden. In addition to many full-color photographs and illustrations, the book features:

• Easy Surfaces and Structures - creating an easy-care surface in the garden
• Easy Planting Solutions - low-maintenance plants for a wide range of situations
• Transforming Gardens to Lower Maintenance - how to turn any size garden into a low-maintenance garden
• Low-Maintenance Techniques - essential tips on reducing time spent on basic gardening chores
• Directory of Easy-Care Plants - from trouble-free trees to easy grasses and water plants

With real-life case studies and many tips and suggestions, gardeners can now recapture leisure time.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Berry is a gardening writer and editor with more than 20 books and many magazine articles to her credit, including contributions to Gardener's World and Homes & Gardens. Her previous books include The City Garden, Contained Gardens, Best Plants, Laura Ashley Color and, as co-author, Plants for Small Spaces from Firefly Books. She lives in London.

Steve Bradley has a Royal Horticultural Society Master of Horticulture Diploma and was Director of Horticulture at Merrist Wood College in England for many years before pursuing a career in journalism. He has gardening programs on television and radio, and has written a number of books on gardening including two books with co-author Susan Berry: Contained Gardens, The Pruning Handbook and Plant Life. He lives in England.

Reviews

Berry and Bradley (coauthors of Contained Gardens) aim at gardeners willing to invest time and effort in exchange for an end result that won't require as much upkeep as the traditional lawn-and-border arrangement. The authors cover a lot of ground, breaking down the information they present so that each turn of the page reveals a new topic, from incorporating hard surfaces, such as bricks and paving, to the use of ornamental grasses. Packed with photos, small sidebars and a "low-maintenance rating" (small water fountains, for example, receive four out of a possible five stars for ease of care), the material is heavier on inspiration than how-to, although thumbnail instructions are included for a variety of projects, such as building a raised bed from bricks and establishing a fern bed. A slightly longer discussion on converting an existing garden into one that requires less labor is followed by an analysis of half a dozen gorgeous gardens of different styles--from traditional Japanese to an "urban jungle." The final section explains how the three ps of garden chores--planting, pruning and propagating--can be streamlined. There is a great deal for thought here, particularly for intermediate and experienced gardeners, and the eye-catching presentation packs a pleasant visual punch.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Low-maintenance" means "less work," the authors promise in their introduction to this lavishly illustrated volume. Work can be saved if a portion of the garden is devoted to hard surfaces such as bricks and paving, decking, or gravel, and Berry and Bradley give instructions on building these surfaces. The authors also suggest installing raised beds and water features, and offer data on creating them. They discuss a number of plants such as ground covers, ornamental grasses, ferns, and shrub borders for easy upkeep, and offer several low-maintenance designs, including a Japanese-style garden, a semi-wild garden, an urban jungle, and a country studio. The authors also provide a section on easier ways to garden by sensibly organizing the workload with tips on planting, feeding, watering, weeding, pruning, and pest and disease control, and a directory of flowers, trees, shrubs, grasses, and sedges that require minimum care. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1552095142
• ISBN 13: 9781552095140
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144