From agaves to ice plants and sedums to sempervivums, hardy succulents can bring color, texture, and versatility to perennial flower beds in any climate. This comprehensive guide offers clear growing instructions accompanied by vivid photography of these durable and beautiful plants. With tips on choosing the right varieties for every North American hardiness zone, you can enjoy all the quirky vibrancy of succulents wherever you live.

    Author Lisa Eldred-Steinkopf, known as the Houseplant Guru, shares the knowledge she’s gained tending to her own personal jungle of over 1,000 houseplants. Having a south-facing window doesn’t always guarantee you the best light to grow plants—especially if your window faces an alley or a tree-lined street. What’s the point of growing an urban jungle if tall buildings are blocking all your sunshine? This compact guide, designed to look as good on your shelf as it is useful, will help you learn how to make the most of your light so you can reap the physical and emotional benefits of living with plants. Detailed profiles include tips on watering your plants just right, properly potting them, and troubleshooting pests and diseases. You’ll also learn which plants are safe to keep around your pets. Whether you live in a shady top-floor apartment or a dungeon-y garden level, this book will help you grow your plant collection to its healthiest for its Instagram debut.

    In transcribing the 150-year-old manuscript’s cryptic handwriting and complex notations, Thoreau specialist Bradley Dean has performed a "heroic feat of decipherment" (Booklist) to bring this great work to light. Readers will discover "passages that reach for the transcendentalist ideal of writing new scriptures, yet grounding this Bible in a vision of practical ecology" (Boston). Beautifully illustrated throughout with line drawings of the natural life Thoreau considers on his walks, Wild Fruits is "well worth any nature lover’s attention" (Christian Science Monitor).

    But his blog GuerrillaGardening.org attracted other guerrillas from around the world to share their experiences of the horticultural front line with him and become a focal point for guerrilla gardeners everywhere. On Guerrilla Gardening is a lively colourful treatise about why people illicitly cultivate land and how to do it. From discretely beautifying corners of Montreal to striving for green communal space in Berlin and sustainable food production in San Francisco, from small gestures of fun in Zurich to bold political statements in Brazil, cultivating land beyond your boundary is a battle many different people are fighting. Unearthed along the way are the movement’s notable historic advances by seventeenth century English radicals, a nineteenth century American entrepreneur and artists in 1970s New York. Reynolds has researched the subject with guerrilla gardeners from thirty different countries and compiles their advice on what to grow, how to cope with adverse environmental conditions, how to seed bomb effectively and to use propaganda to win support. On Guerrilla Gardening gives entertaining inspiration, practical reference and no excuses for not getting out there and gardening.

    What plants to grow, how to nurture them, and where they do the very best--it's all here. You'll also find updated information on the Western climate zones, 30 Plant Selection Guides, plus a Practical Guide to Gardening with basic advice on plant care and essential gardening techniques. New plant lists reflect current trends, such as Mediterranean gardening and easy-care plants for beginners. For more than 70 years, Sunset has been the source for no-nonsense gardening advice, easy-to-follow diagrams, and encyclopedic knowledge of plant varieties. In this edition, we introduce an exciting new feature: gardening tips from well-known plant experts throughout the West. The Western Garden Book has never been better! Features:8th Edition of this perennial bestsellerMore than 8,000 plant listings, 500 new, keyed to climate zones30 Plant Selection Guides to find the perfect plant for every situationSpecial contributions from 40 eminent Western garden expertsIntroduction by Sunset garden editor Kathleen N. Brenzel, with a photographic tour of gardens that are truly the `Best of the West' gardens

    But aren't they hard to grow at home? No! says orchid grower extraordinaire Steve Frowine. In this handy guide, he shows you step by step how to select the right orchids, keep them healthy, encourage blooms, and even propagate your own plants. Discover how to: * Select orchids that will thrive in your home * Water, fertilize, repot, and propagate orchids * Decipher complicated orchid names * Get familiar with favorite orchid varieties * Create spectacular orchid displays

    But more people are discovering a very attractive alternative.Packed with practical tips and beautiful photographs, Front Yard GardensExplores the history of the lawn and our attachment to it Contains examples of front yard gardens from more than seventy gardens across North America Provides step-by-step instructions to start and grow your own front yard garden Liz Primeau transformed her lawn in a quiet suburb to a mixed garden with a profusion of flowering plants, shrubs, and cacti. She now enjoys an eye-catching front garden that requires no chemicals and less watering than her lawn.This book includes overall planning and design, and outlines the steps for removing the grass, enriching the soil, and planting. The book is divided into several types of front yard gardens, including cottage, minimalist, secret, neighborhood, downtown, and natural. She discusses the key elements of each style, gives tips on how to create and maintain the garden, and provides a list of complementary plants.With more than two hundred beautiful photographs taken expressly for this book by Andrew Leyerle, Front Yard Gardens is a sensual treasure-trove of ideas.

    It grows wild in twenty-six states, gracing Eastern forests each fall with sweet-smelling, tropical-flavored abundance. Historically, it fed and sustained Native Americans and European explorers, presidents, and enslaved African Americans, inspiring folk songs, poetry, and scores of place names from Georgia to Illinois. Its trees are an organic grower’s dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered.So why have so few people heard of the pawpaw, much less tasted one? In Pawpaw, author Andrew Moore explores the past, present, and future of this unique fruit, traveling from the Ozarks to Monticello; canoeing the lower Mississippi in search of wild fruit; drinking pawpaw beer in Durham, North Carolina; tracking down lost cultivars in Appalachian hollers; and helping out during harvest season in a Maryland orchard. Along the way, he gathers pawpaw lore and knowledge not only from the plant breeders and horticulturists working to bring pawpaws into the mainstream (including Neal Peterson, known in pawpaw circles as the fruit’s own “Johnny Pawpawseed”), but also regular folks who remember eating them in the woods as kids, but haven’t had one in over fifty years.As much as Pawpaw is a compendium of pawpaw knowledge, it also plumbs deeper questions about American foodways―how economic, biologic, and cultural forces combine, leading us to eat what we eat, and sometimes to ignore the incredible, delicious food growing all around us. If you haven’t yet eaten a pawpaw, this book won’t let you rest until you do.

      As the nation’s iconic calendar, the 2020 edition will forecast cultural, culinary, and other life-changing trends; preview notable astronomical events; provide time- and money-saving tips for gardeners of all varieties; set the hook for best fishing days; forecast traditionally 80 percent–accurate weather; and cover a range of related topics, including anniversaries, folklore, husbandry, home remedies, recipes, amusement, contests, and more—too much more to mention—all in the inimitable way it has done since 1792.

    Full of information and camaraderie, this book explains how to grow common vegetables and herbs and add unusual ones that bring variety to the garden. Line art throughout.

    With this book you can turn the tiniest space into a productive and attractive plot, using the best varieties and techniques. Follow 30 tried-and-tested container recipes for top tasting crop combinations such as tomato with basil, fruit salads and cut-and-come-again vegetables. Discover the essential techniques that every container-gardener should know and use the crop directory to find out the best way to grow more than 60 vegetables, fruit, salads, herbs and edible flowers.

    Fascinating facts abound: the Druids believed that only the wood of the yew tree was fit to make wands; a Ukrainian tonic of birch leaves contains the same healing properties as aspirin. A visually stunning and engaging guide, The Meaning of Trees is a fitting tribute to this most majestic of natural wonders. 8.60 inches tall x 0.80 inches long x 8.60 inches wide

    Step-by-step projects, including a cake-stand centerpiece, special-occasion bouquets, a vertical garden, and a succulent topiary sphere, will inspire you to express your individual style.

    It condenses a huge amount of information about tree identification--more than has ever been collected in a single book--into a logical, accessible, easy-to-use format.With more than 4,100 meticulous, exquisitely detailed paintings, the Guide highlights the often subtle similarities and distinctions between more than 600 tree species--native trees as well as many introduced species. No other guide has ever made field identification so clear.Features highlighted include: - leaves (including multiple leaf shapes and fall leaf color)- bark- needles- cones- flowers- fruit- twigs- silhouettesMore than 500 maps show the complete range, both natural and cultivated, for nearly all species.Trees are arranged taxonomically, with all related species grouped together. By focusing on the fundamental characteristics of, for example, oaks or chestnuts or hickories, the Guide helps the user recognize these basic species groups the same way birders recognize thrushes, warblers, or sparrows.In addition, there are essays on taxonomy, on the cultivation of trees, and on conservation issues, reflecting Sibley's deep concern with habitat preservation and environmental health.An important new contribution to our understanding of the natural world, The Sibley Guide to Trees will be a necessity for every tree lover, traveler, and naturalist. It is sure to become the new benchmark in field guides to trees.

    The Complete Book of Cacti & Succulents is a feast of in-depth information and over 600 eye-catching photographs. This book has everything you need to make your plant arrangements healthy and spectacular no matter what kinds of succulents you use. Using this guide, you will quickly discover just how bold and creative you can be with these arrangements, and understand why so many decorators can recommend succulents for almost every occasion.Whether you're just thinking about decorating with these beautiful, easy-to-care-for plants, or you've been a sucker for succulents for a good long while, this book contains ideas and inspiration for beginners and masters alike. Through step-by-step full-color sequences and expert guidance, this book gives in-depth information on the history, cultivation, and creative use of hundreds of strikingly handsome specimens of cacti and provides practical information for use in both house and garden.