Of all the gardening books I've read and reviewed, there's one that stands out whenever I'm asked for a recommendation. I've consulted with it many times myself, and always keep it handy. You should, too.
Here's a review I wrote for Newsday exactly one year ago.
"The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques" (Timber Press, $34.95)
This newly published, updated and expanded edition of the popular 1998 guide details essential practices of perennial care, such as deadheading, pinching, cutting back, thinning, disbudding and deadleafing, all of which are explained and illustrated.
Author's credentials: DiSabato-Aust is a designer, professional speaker, landscape entrepreneur and horticultural author based in Columbus, Ohio.
Excerpt: "The amount of maintenance a garden requires depends precisely on how the garden was designed or planned. The chosen setting, style, size and shape of the garden as well as the plant selection, arrangement and spacing all intertwine to determine the type of care needed."
Effectiveness: This book is an excellent resource for planting and maintaining perennial gardens. With detailed instructions on design, bed preparation, planting and staggering bloom times, and in-depth tutorials on every type of pruning, "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden," will serve novice and experienced gardeners alike.
Readers can grab design ideas straight from the author's gardens, as more than 200 photos are included for inspiration. Also included is an appendix on ornamental grasses, a perennial garden planting and maintenance schedule (as well as a maintenance journal), and an index of plant names.
The pièce de résistance is an A-to-Z encyclopedia of perennial species, their bloom times and maintenance needs, which, alone, makes this the one book you should keep handy to consult throughout the year.
