Cool Plants for Cold Climates: A Garden Designer's Perspective - Softcover

Adams, Brenda C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 160223325X ISBN 13: 9781602233256

Publisher: University of Alaska Press, 2017

Synopsis

A cold climate is no excuse for a dull, colorless garden. The key is knowing the right plants that will survive and thrive in even the chilliest environments. Who better to guide gardeners than an expert from the far north? Award-winning designer and Alaska gardener Brenda Adams has spent decades searching for exceptional plants that flourish in wintery climates. In Cool Plants for Cold Climates, she presents vivid and detailed portraits of the best and most beautiful of the bunch.

When Adams moved from the warm Southwest to Alaska, she found herself in a different gardening world, with few guides on how to approach this new ecosystem. Now, more than twenty-five years later, she shares the secrets gained from her years of gardening experiments as well as bountiful advice from friends and local nurseries. She explains how to evaluate a plant, balancing its artistic attributes with its more utilitarian ones, as well as how to evaluate your space and soil. Adams then takes you into the nursery, offering guidance on how to pick the best of the best. Finally, she offers a detailed look at a wide variety of wonderful plants, highlighting those that offer overall beauty, are especially easy to care for, and solidly hardy. With more than three hundred vivid pictures of both individual plants and full gardens, Adams proves that there is a bounty of plants, in a rainbow of colors, waiting to brighten up your space.

About this title

About the Author

Brenda Adams is the designer for and founder of Gardens By Design, Alaska’s premier garden design firm, and author of There’s a Moose in My Garden: Designing Gardens in Alaska and the Far North. She lives in Homer, Alaska.

Review

Silver Medal of Achievement (GWA Media Award Association for Garden Communicators)

“Adams is an accomplished and award-winning garden designer whose easygoing prose and deep knowledge of what will grow and flourish in very cold climates are a gift to cold-climate gardeners everywhere. . . . There is plenty of eye candy, too. The pages are filled with gorgeous photos of these hard plants and lush gardens thriving in an often-challenging climate.” (Country Gardens)

“Adams’ new book is useful to cold climate gardeners everywhere -- across Canada and all those northern fl y-over states to New England, Northern Europe and, probably, Outer Mongolia. . . . What lifts this book above other decent advice books is the hundred or so pages of recommended plants with stunning photographs showing them in a variety of groupings illustrating how individual choices fit together. Maybe it?s the four feet of snow piled in my yard, or the single-digit temperatures every night into late March, but Adams? practical advice about both familiar and unfamiliar plants—and the photo illustrations—had me redesigning my garden in my imagination, over and over.”

(Sheila Toomey Alaska Master Gardeners Anchorage)

“An appealingly authentic and useful resource that makes the many months of arctic winter feel more tolerable given the garden planning that can be done.” (Choice)

“Well-named and beautifully illustrated. . . . Focused on the far north, this book fills a niche for the cold climate gardener with significantly fewer “how to” references than those who cultivate ornamental plants in warm regions. . . . Cool Plants for Cold Climates will be a welcome resource for people who spend winters by the fire side contemplating appealing plants to thrive in next season’s garden display.” (Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research)

“Cool Plants for Cold Climates is so much more than a plant encyclopedia—it is the sum of knowledge and wisdom (and wit) of a gardener who loves plants and refuses to be constrained by a short growing season, Adams deftly blends her designer’s perspective and gardening expertise into a wonderfully fresh primer for gardeners of all stripes.” (Richard Hawke, plant evaluation manager, Chicago Botanic Garden)

“I love every page of Cool Plants for Cold Climates. Feasible and functional advice make this book an essential companion for every gardener. This is a gold-mine; offering nuggets of wisdom on selecting plants for their impact and dependability. It even offers pointers on shopping for perennials, trees, and shrubs.” (Julie Riley, horticulturist, University of Alaska Fairbanks)

“Adams presents a garden as a theatrical event, and her scenes encourage gardeners to look beyond flower color to the dizzying array of plant attributes—texture, shape, motion, fragrance, hardiness, and more. Her palette of exceptional plants, practical advice backed by years of experience, and stunning photographs will be inspirational and educational to all northern gardeners."
  (Patricia Holloway, professor emeritus, horticulture, University of Alaska Fairbanks)

"Brenda Adams, author and designer, has done it again. This time she digs into Cool Plants for Cold Climates and gives you the real nitty gritty. As a successful designer she gives you great insights on what will grow in the harshest climates. She discusses everything from bulbs, perennials, to trees and other plants that can grow in this climate. The pictures will inspire you to try some new plants and tackle some new ideas. This book will be an invaluable resource for old and new gardeners because as an experienced gardener and designer she is one cool writer and fresh new voice!"
  (Stephanie Cohen, author of The Perennial Gardener's Design Primer and Fallscaping)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Alaska Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 160223325X
• ISBN 13: 9781602233256
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256