Get all the inspiration you need to plan and design your first garden!
- 50 ideas for adding style, personality, and creativity to your outdoor space
- Everything to consider, whether you want a small container project for your porch or a major rework of your backyard
- How to support pollinators and protect the environment, what to plan and when, and how to personalize your space
- Container gardens, herb, rock, vegetable, moss, wildlife, formal, informal, and cottage garden styles
- Foreword by P. Allen Smith, gardener, horticulturalist, conservationist, and host of two of PBS series, Garden Home and Garden to Table
- New edition in a larger format with updated images and a fresh design
Take the simple approach to defining your style and designing your garden!
For first-time gardeners, the decision on what style of garden best suits your lifestyle and aesthetic and how to accomplish it can be daunting, while gardeners in general are always looking for inspiration. In the foreword of this helpful gardening book, P. Allen Smith states, "Helen has outlined 50 ways to add style to express one's personal creativity in the garden — when in fact her 50 will inspire at least 50 more ideas." Rather than force her own creative ideas on you, author, garden stylist, coach, and lifelong outdoor enthusiast Helen Yoest teaches you to recognize and act on your own creativity!
Inside this book, Helen will alleviate your concerns and build your confidence as she guides you through the process with ease using her simple approach to garden planning and design. In her comprehensive guide, Helen provides a chapter-by-chapter overview of 50 different garden elements, styles, tips, and techniques to inspire your creativity and build your gardening confidence.
Easy-to-follow sections take you through everything from choosing the perfect space and sketching your idea to how to create rhythm, scale, balance, and curb appeal, add color, consider privacy, add fragrance, attract birds, bees, and butterflies, use containers effectively, and more. Get advice on choosing a garden style such as a container garden, rock garden, vegetable garden, cottage or country garden, herb garden, moss garden, wildlife garden, and formal or informal gardens. Chapters are dedicated to adding water features like fountains and ponds, garden accents like retaining walls, walkways, and trellises, creating focal points, considering pest control and energy conservation, as well as creating a sustainable garden environment where plants and animals can live together.
Let your imagination go wild and create an amazing space that will give back season after season, with Beginner's Guide to Garden Planning and Design!
"Helen isn't interested in impressing readers with how much she knows. Rather she's concerned with readers impressing themselves with how much they can accomplish once they believe they can."
—Steve Bender, senior writer for Southern Living magazine
"Beginner's Guide to Garden Planning and Design provides all of us an overview of garden style without dictating what it should be. Helen helps readers explore, discover, and express what their own style actually is."
—P. Allen Smith, PBS Host, Award-Winning Garden and Lifestyle Designer
"Gardening with Helen Yoest is like working with the best teacher you ever had in high school. She instructs from personal experience gained day after day in the garden pulling weeds, placing stones, and planting flowers. Her mission is to help you to your first little success!"
—Steve Bender, The Grumpy Gardener and Editor-at-Large, Southern Living magazine
Helen Yoest is a lifelong outdoor enthusiast who would much rather spend a day in a garden than anywhere indoors.
Helen was born in Chincoteague, Virginia, and was raised in Norfolk, Virginia. She earned an undergraduate degree from Old Dominion University and a graduate degree in environmental engineering and science from Brunel University in London, England. She spent 20 years as an air pollution field engineer before changing careers to hang her shingle in horticulture. Helen is an honorary member of Pi Alpha Xi, the national horticultural honor society.
Helen is a garden stylist and writer, having penned the books Good Berry Bad Berry: Who's Edible, Who's Toxic, and How to Tell the Difference (Good . . . Bad) and Plants with Benefits: An Uninhibited Guide to the Aphrodisiac Herbs, Fruits, Flowers & Veggies in Your Garden.
For 15 years, Helen scouted, produced, and wrote for most national gardening magazines, such as Better Homes and Gardens, Country Gardens, Southern Living, and many state and regional titles. Helen was also a writer for Martha Stewart Living, The Christian Science Monitor, and Fine Gardening, along with writing pieces for P. Allen Smith and many others.
Helen served for five years as the regional representative for the Raleigh-area Garden Conservancy's Open Days tour, and is a former member of the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum and currently advises the Raleigh City Farm.
Helen lives with her husband and three kids in Raleigh, North Carolina.
