Ornamental Horticulture: Library Guide

Every professional landscape designer develops his or her own design process, emphasizing some steps while minimizing or eliminating others. It's important to learn every aspect of the process before getting on the job. Bertauski's comprehensive and readable Designing the Landscape presents every facet of the design experience from client interviews and concepts through presenting and pricing a master plan, so students can learn what works and what doesn't when they still have the time and opportunity to make valuable mistakes. The author's focus on topics that foster understanding of the functionality and aesthetics of design equips students with skills they need to be effective designers. While residential design is emphasized, many concepts and steps can be applied to commercial projects.

This book takes the guesswork out of planning any landscaping project. Landscaping a property can be an overwhelming task. How much will it cost? How long will it take? What plants will grow best in a particular location? Is it a do-it-yourself or a professional job? Landscape designer and horticulturalist Judith Adam provides every crucial step in designing and implementing a landscape plan: from assessing specific needs and planning a budget and timeline, to making the best choices for a successful garden. From her years of experience, Adam describes 200 of her favorite plants, shrubs and trees. This revised edition includes a new chapter on low-maintenance and self-reliant gardening that helps the home gardener get the most out of the space with the least amount of work. This new edition of Landscape Planning includes: 25 fully illustrated step-by-step projects 27 fully illustrated Ten Best lists, such as ten best drought-resistant shrubs; ten best plants for autumn display A property assessment survey, budget questionnaire and sample four-year plan Hardscaping: ideas for steps, sidewalks, fences and lighting Softscaping: working with plants, shrubs, trees and lawns Techniques for planting, irrigating and fertilizing plants and controlling pests A list of tools that every gardener needs Plans for a low-maintenance garden -- and much more. This comprehensive guide is a must-have for homeowners and avid gardeners alike.

"A book that will be absolutely necessary in the world ahead."--Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and Hope, Human and Wild The revised and updated edition of the classic guide to ecological gardening for home gardeners to achieve more beautiful, abundant and forgiving gardens of any size Featuring new guidance on urban permaculture for people with limited growing space Many people think that ecological gardening--which involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plants--can take place only on a large, multiacre scale. But it's fun and easy even for beginners to create a backyard ecosystem by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions, including: * Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure * Catching and conserving water in the landscape * Providing a rewilded and biodiverse habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals * Growing an edible "forest" that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods Best of all, once it's established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that's needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden. Gaia's Garden has sparked the imagination of home gardeners the world over by introducing a simple message: working with nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. You can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful no matter what size garden or yard you have. "An amazing achievement showing how we can and must live in harmony with nature!"--Paul Stamets, author of Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

This post-wild landscape guide is an "optimistic call to action" to help gardeners create a harmonious environment by incoporating plant communities (Chicago Tribune). Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious.  Featuring gorgeous photography and advice for landscapers, Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West is dedicated to the idea of a new nature--a hybrid of both the wild and the cultivated--that can nourish in our cities and suburbs. 

"An outstanding and enjoyable introduction to botany, whether the reader is a gardener, or just a garden visitor." --Bloomsbury Review   What happens inside a seed after it is planted? How are plants structured? How do plants reproduce? The answers to these and other questions about complex plant processes can be found in the bestselling Botany for Gardeners. Written in accessible language, this must-have guide allows gardeners and horticulturists to understand plants from the plant's point of view. Now in its third edition, Botany for Gardeners has now been expanded and updated, and includes an appendix on plant taxonomy, a comprehensive index, and dozens of new photos and illustrations.  

"Shows us that guiding natural processes rather than fighting them is the key to creating healthier landscapes and happier gardeners." --Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home Larry Weaner is an icon in the world of ecological landscape design, and now his revolutionary approach is available to home gardeners. Garden Revolution shows how an ecological approach to planting can lead to beautiful gardens that buck much of conventional gardening's counter-productive, time-consuming practices. Instead of picking the wrong plant and then weeding, irrigating, and fertilizing, Weaner advocates for choosing plants that are adapted to the soil and climate of a specific site and letting them naturally evolve over time. This lushly-photographed reference is for anyone looking for a better, smarter way to garden.

Setting up your first raised bed garden? With help from YouTube gardening star CaliKim, you'll soon be growing your own fresh, organic vegetables, herbs, and flowers like a pro. Whether your yard is big or small, raised beds are the perfect fit. They allow you to create a controlled growing environment, filled with fertile soil, where plants thrive. Raised beds help gardeners overcome rocky or less-than-ideal soils, there's little to no weeding involved, and they can be as large or as petite as you'd like. You can even use an elevated or mobile raised bed if the only sunny space you have to grow is on a patio, deck, or driveway. In The First-Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening, you'll learn how to select the best raised bed for your space, what to fill it with, and tips for staking and trellising plants to save space and improve yields. Additional advice found inside includes: DIY plans for building quick-and-simple beds Info on the best soil mixes for filling raised beds How to mulch, water, and fertilize your new garden Illustrated planting plans to help you determine how many plants fit in each bed Step-by-step project plans for unique raised bed trellising systems The best beginner-friendly crops to get you started How to maximize production from a small raised bed garden Tips to get growing in a way that won't leave you feeling overwhelmed halfway through the season Raised bed gardening is perfect for beginners, as long as you have a pro like CaliKim sharing her essential know-how and cheering you on to veggie-growing victory. This book is part of The First-Time Gardener's Guides series from Cool Springs Press, which also includes The First-Time Gardener: Growing Plants and Flowers and The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables. Each book in The First-Time Gardener's Guides series is aimed at beginner gardeners and offers clear, fact-based information that's presented in a friendly and accessible way, including step-by-step instructions and full-color illustrations throughout.

This book is packed with simple, practical steps for beautifying any landscape or garden, while helping protect the planet and the species that call it home. This book is the ideal tool for homeowners, gardeners, and landscape professionals who want to be part of the solution to climate change.

This updated edition of Straw Bale Gardens Complete is the only book you need to get started with the revolutionary gardening method that has taken the world by storm. Written by Joel Karsten, the originator of Straw Bale Gardening, this exciting update contains detailed, start-to-finish instructions for growing vegetables in straw anywhere, plus many new ideas and projects, including how to set up a greenhouse for less than $100 that allows you to start seeds on top of heat-generating straw bale benches. Whatever your gardening challenge, Straw Bale Gardening holds the solution. Have a small or unusual space? Straw Bale Gardening is perfect for urban, rooftop, and balcony gardens. Contaminated soil? Planting in straw bales eliminates the problem. Are you inundated by weeds? With straw bales, there is no weeding. The advantages of growing a Straw Bale Garden go on and on: they require 75 percent less labor, their raised height makes planting easier, they extend the growing season, prevent disease and insect issues, are portable, hold water well but are impossible to overwater, they create excellent compost, and can be grown 100 percent organically.   Imagine building a simple shoulder season seed-starter greenhouse for under $100 and then heating it with six bales of straw. In this all-new section, Karsten explains how you can build his six-week greenhouse, and set all of your seed trays on the nice warm benches inside, made from straw bales. The heat generated during their early decomposition is the entire heat source for the tiny greenhouse. Among the new subjects:   Building and heating the six-week greenhouse for less than $100 Cultivating mushrooms in straw bales Tips and ideas for making your straw bale garden more attractive How to make a cold frame with straw bales Trellising projects for growing vertically And much more Assure your success with Straw Bale Gardening with instructions and advice direct from the pioneer of the method.

The Complete Language of Trees is a comprehensive encyclopedia providing the meanings, powers, facts, and folklore for over 400 types of trees.

Sustainable Gardening puts gardeners on the eco-friendly path by providing all the necessary guidance to create and care for a stable, resource-savvy, and gorgeous landscape.

Can nature--in all its unruly wildness--be an integral part of creative landscape design? In her beautifully illustrated book, Wild by Design, award-winning designer Margie Ruddick urges designers to look beyond the rules often imposed by both landscaping convention and sustainability checklists. Instead, she offers a set of principles for a more creative and intuitive approach that challenges the entrenched belief that natural processes cannot complement high-level landscape design.   Wild by Design defines and explains the five fundamental strategies Ruddick employs, often in combination, to give life, beauty, and meaning to landscapes: Reinvention, Restoration, Conservation, Regeneration, and Expression. Drawing on her own projects--from New York City's Queens Plaza, formerly a concrete jungle of traffic, to a desertscape backyard in Baja, California, to the Living Water Park in Chengdu, China--she offers guidance on creating beautiful, healthy landscapes that successfully reconnect people with larger natural systems.   A revealing look into the approach of one of sustainable landscape design's most innovative practitioners, Wild by Design stretches the boundaries of landscape design, offering readers a set of broader, more flexible strategies and practical examples that allow for the unexpected exuberance of nature to be a welcome part of our gardens, parks, backyards, and cities.