The Colorful Dry Garden

“Eye-popping proof that water-wise gardens are bold, beautiful and brilliantly hued.” —San Diego Home and Garden Dry weather defines the southwest, and it's getting dryer. As water becomes more precious, our gardens suffer. If we want to keep gardening, we must revolutionize our plant choices and garden practices. Hot Color, Dry Garden provides a joyful, color-filled way to exuberantly garden in low-water conditions. Garden expert Nan Sterman highlights inspiring examples of brilliant gardens filled with water-smart plants. You'll find information about designing for color using plants, architecture, and accessories, along with a plant directory that features drought-tolerant plants that dazzle.

A design-focused, easy-to-use guide to colorful, eye-catching foliage and flowers for your whole yard, from the ground plane to the canopy, for homeowners and landscapers faced with replacing thirsty gardens in California and other dry regions in the Western US. If readers must reluctantly remove water-guzzling favorites from the garden, they need equally beautiful substitutes! This book is a visual treat that supports the transition to dry gardening by proving that gardeners can have all the gorgeous color and flowers they had in the past using just a fraction of the water. Maureen Gilmer provides chapters on design categories of plants—flowering shrubs, the ground plain, eye-catching accents, ephemeral flowers, perennials for color, animated plants and fine textures, canopy, and edibles—with profiles for each plant plus background info and top picks lists. The Colorful Dry Garden is unique because it features only bold plants that are also heavy bloomers despite heat and limited water. It also features more than just Western native plants by including varieties from the world's driest climates.

“For those of you—and your numbers are growing—gardening in drought-stricken parts of the country, The Bold Dry Garden will quench your thirst for inspiration.” —New York Times Book Review Ruth Bancroft is a dry gardening pioneer. Her lifelong love of plants led to the creation of one of the most acclaimed public gardens, The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California. The Bold Dry Garden offers unparalleled access to the garden and the extraordinary woman responsible for it. In its stunningly photographed pages, you’ll discover the history of the garden and the design principles and plant palette that make it unique. Packed with growing and maintenance tips, profiles of signature plants for a dry garden, and innovative design techniques, The Bold Dry Garden has everything you need to create a garden that is lush, waterwise, and welcoming.

Acclaimed landscape designer Daniel Nolan showcases the best of desert gardenscapes that have become synonymous with luxury minimalism, and presents techniques that will inspire readers to transform available space into their own modern dry garden. Hot days, cool nights, dry air, a blazing sun—California’s Mediterranean climate is not what you think of when you hear “lush garden,” but leading garden designers Nolan and his peers have revolutionized this genre with their artful designs. Nolan, the authority on dry gardens, has carefully selected 25 unique public and private garden masterpieces, diverse examples of interior and exterior gardening techniques. Readers will be treated to a complete look at crafting elevated and rustic gardens through a variety of environments, from pools and pocket gardens, front lawns, balconies, and living walls to retail spaces, museums, and vineyards. Each detailed project offers a different approach to incorporating the desert’s wild array of flora and becomes a practical tool, addressing various materials and horticultural and compositional solutions. Rich with bold architecture of spiny cacti, brilliant and muted sage, rosy succulents, bright, dusty sands, and red rocks, Dry Gardens proves that inspiration has no geographic boundaries. It will be appreciated by lovers of gardens and interior design from around the world.

First published in French as Alternatives au gazon in 2011.

'I return to Beth Chatto's books constantly. For those who are new to her work, you are entering into a life-long relationship with a wise friend and gardener' Monty Don 'Invaluable to those who want to plant a trouble-free, all-year-round garden with minimum care - or watering' FLORA In today's climate of increasingly hot summers and dry winters, gardeners need guidance on plants that will thrive in dry conditions. In Beth Chatto's classic book, she uses plants that need very little attention and are naturally adapted to flourish in dry conditions to provide a year-round display of beautiful foliage and flowers. Drawing from her own immense experience, she provides valuable guidance on types of soil and on basic principles of design. She discusses the plants and plantings suited to dry conditions and includes a detailed list of plants, with notes and advice on their characteristics.

Here is the definitive guide to growing healthy organic vegetables without wasting our precious water resources! This incredibly timely book will give dedicated home gardeners the know-how to grow delicious produce in dry times, focusing on four different low-water conditions in the western United States: voluntary water conservation, drought, and both high and low desert. Using modern techniques, as well as tips and stories from native traditions ranging from the southwestern United States to the Middle East, this guide offers the best of ancient wisdom and the newest innovations in conservation, and includes varietal recommendations and a seasonal crop guide. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Dry summer, wet winter climate? This is your must have plant guide. Selecting plants suited to your climate is the first step toward a thriving, largely self-sustaining garden that connects with and supports the natural world. With gentle and compelling text and stunning photographs of plants in garden settings, Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates by Nora Harlow and Saxon Holt is a guide to native and climate-adapted plants for summer-dry, winter-wet climates of North America's Pacific coast. Knowing what these climates share and how and why they differ, you can choose to make gardens that maintain and expand local and regional biodiversity, take little from the earth that is not returned, and welcome and accommodate the presence of wildlife. With global warming, it is now even more critical that we garden in tune with climate.