Best of
Landscaping

2004

Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning: What, When, Where & How to Prune for a More Beautiful Garden


Cass Turnbull - 2004
    This second edition of her definitive illustrated guide adds 40 percent new material, with more coverage of different kinds of trees, shrubs, and ground covers and how to prune them for health and aesthetics. The book is organized around the most common types of plants found in Northwest gardens: evergreen and deciduous shrubs; bamboos and tea roses; rhododendrons, camellia and other tree-like shrubs; hedge plants like boxwood and heather; clematis, wisteria and all those vines; and detailed information on trees by species from dogwoods to weeping cherries. In her trademark witty style, Turnbull also addresses tools, landscape renovation, and design errors. Included too are her amusing Ten Commandments for gardeners, which feature such treasures as "Thou shalt not weed-whip the trunk of thy tree, nor bash it with thine mower, nor leave anything tied on thy tree or the branches of thy tree, as is done in the land of the philistines."

Texas Gardening the Natural Way: The Complete Handbook


Howard Garrett - 2004
    There's a new way of gardening in Texas that's healthier for people and the environment, more effective at growing vigorous plants and reducing pests, cheaper to maintain, and just more fun. It's Howard Garrett's "The Natural Way" organic gardening program, and it's all here in Texas Gardening the Natural Way.This book is the first complete, state-of-the-art organic gardening handbook for Texas. Using Howard Garrett's new mainstream gardening techniques, Texas Gardening the Natural Way presents a total gardening program: How to plan, plant, and maintain beautiful landscapes without using chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides. Gardening fundamentals: soils, landscape design, planting techniques, and maintenance practices. Includes more native and adaptable varieties of garden and landscape plants than any other guide on the market. Trees: 134 species of evergreens, berry- and fruit-bearing, flowering, yellow fall color, orange fall color, and red fall color. Shrubs and specialty plants: 85 species for sun, shade, spring flowering, summer flowering, and treeform shrubs. Ground covers and vines: 51 species for sun and shade. Annuals and perennials: 136 species for fall color, winter color, summer color in shade and sun, and spring color. Also seeding rates for wildflowers. Lawn grasses: 10 species for sun and shade, with additional information on 16 native grasses, seeding rates for 32 grasses, and suggested mowing heights. Fruits, nuts, and vegetables: 58 species, with a vegetable planting chart and information on organic pecan and fruit tree growing, fruit varieties for Texas, grape and pecan varieties, and gardening by the moon. Common green manure crops: 29 crops that help enrich the soil. Herbs: 66 species for culinary and medicinal uses. Bugs: 73 types of helpful and harmful bugs, with organic remedies for pests, lists of beneficial bugs and plants that attract them, a beneficial bug release schedule, and sources for beneficial bugs. Plant diseases: organic treatments for 55 common problems. Organic methods for repelling mice, rabbits, armadillos, beavers, cats, squirrels, and deer. Organic management practices: watering, fertilizing, controlling weeds, releasing beneficial insects, biological controls (including bats and purple martins), and recipes for Garrett Juice, fire ant control drench, vinegar herbicide, Sick Tree Treatment, and Tree Trunk Goop. Average first and last freeze dates for locations around the state. Organic fertilizers and soil amendments: 61 varieties, including full instructions for making compost. Organic pest control products: 30 varieties. Common house plants and poisonous plants. Instructions for climbing vegetable structures and bat houses. 833 gorgeous full-color photographs.

A Love of Her Own


Cheris Hodges - 2004
    For 29 years, she has lived in her parents' image. She became a teacher, because she was expected to. Her true passion is in the kitchen, though. Dana has a talent for cooking. But her mother and father, Denise and Frank, feel that having a daughter who cooks for a living is a waste of time. So, to keep the peace, Dana teaches at Columbia, South Carolina's E. L. Wright Middle School. She knows the only reason she is such a young teacher with an honors class is because she is the daughter of a University of South Carolina professor and the first black superintendent of Richland One School District's daughter. Dana is tired of living in her parents' cold shadow, but the somewhat self-conscious woman doesn't want problems. Dana is also tired of the farce of a relationship she got in at her mother's urging. Andre Harrington would be a dream for most women, but Dana doesn't love him. She's sure that he wants to marry her because her last name is Ellison and he works under her mother at USC. One evening, Dana heads to Andre's house for a romantic dinner, which turns out to be a wedding ambush. While she's there, she meets a man who will change her life, self-image and her mind. Chris Johnson, a sexy landscaper, is working on Andre's back yard, ironically trying to prepare for Andre and Dana's reception. Sparks fly between Dana and Chris the moment their eyes meet.

Auldbrass: Frank Lloyd Wright's Southern Plantation


David G. De Long - 2004
    Although Frank Lloyd Wright designed more than 1,000 projects during his long and prolific career, Auldbrass Plantation, in Yemassee, South Carolina, is the only plantation he ever designed. It is also one of the largest and most complex projects he ever undertook. Wright had an unusually intense commitment to Auldbrass, and worked on it, off and on, for more than twenty years, from 1938 until his death in 1959. Because Auldbrass was private and because it fell into disrepair in the 1960s after the owners' death, it was rarely photographed or studied, and as a consequence little has been known about this major work. With a recently completed restoration and new photography, this book affords a rare opportunity to see one of Wright's greatest works, as the master himself originally envisioned it. Through photos, plans, and drawings, we see what Wright planned, and how it has finally all been either restored or realized for the first time. In 1986, film producer Joel Silver (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, Predator, Romeo Must Die, The Matrix, and over forty other films) bought Auldbrass. He had earlier bought and meticulously restored Wright's famous 1923 Storer House in Hollywood. Now he has again collaborated with Wright's grandson, architect Eric Lloyd Wright, who restored the Storer House, to restore the Auldbrass Plantation.

Best Trees and Shrubs for the Prairies


Hugh Skinner - 2004
    With detailed information on over four hundred species and cultivars of trees and shrubs for our climate, Best Trees and Shrubs for the Prairies includes tried-and-true favourites and many little-known or new and exciting trees and shrubs that have proven their worth on the prairies and plains.

The New Zen Garden: Designing Quiet Spaces


Joseph Cali - 2004
    Japanese gardens are renowned for their serene and peaceful ambiance. The New Zen Garden presents the Japanese garden as it exists today, with all its traditional qualities joined to modern architecture and viewed from a modern perspective. This book takes the concept introduced in the best-selling Japanese Touch for Your Garden and, focusing on the more contemplative gardens that are drawing greater and greater attention, blends it with a more practical approach. Lavishly illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs and featuring the works of contemporary garden designers and landscape architects, The New Zen Garden begins with a brief introduction of the history of the Japanese garden and its spiritual roots. It then guides the reader through the basics of garden concepts, layout, and personal needs. With a focus on small- and medium-size home gardens, author Joseph Cali introduces a visually explicit process in which anyone can conceive their own home garden, whether for a single-family residence or the balcony of an apartment or townhouse. Cali also includes a handful "spotlight sections" that feature guidance from prominent Japanese garden designers, each of whom steers the reader step-by-step through a specific building technique, including the making of textured clay walls, traditional stone walkways, and stone settings. The New Zen Garden provides a wealth of information on designing a garden to harmonize with any home or private space. It is a provocative eye-opener both for the serious Japanese garden enthusiast and the weekend gardener.

Indiana Gardener's Guide


Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp - 2004
    Homeowners realize the health benefits available from gardening and the potential increase in their home's property value. Regional gardening titles offer the most useful advice because they provide credible information on the plants that perform best in specific states. Gardeners want information they can trust and use successfully in their own gardens. The Arizona Gardener's Guide is a full-color plant selection resource guide written especially for Arizona gardeners. It includes the top 175 landscape plants as recommended by one of Arizona's most respected horticultural experts.