The Ever-Blooming Flower Garden: A Blueprint for Continuous Color

This is the best garden design/planning book I have ever read is is practical, focused, not overwhelming. It is particullarly good if you are starting a garden - it will save you tons of money, time and disappointment & frustration. If you have been gardening a while and your garden still isn't perfect this book will help you adjust your garden. If you want a beautiful garden that you can establish and then let grow start here. If you have a messy mishmash this book can also help you get it under control and/or bring in new plants to fill out your bloom time.The best features:- How to plan your garden, figuring out the right garden shape and number and kinds of plants you need to fill the garden this is particullarly helpful if beginning with a blank slate. They have easy to use examples of how to draw a garden plan and if you don't want to do that there are simple charts based on size and number of plant needed.- Planning good color combinations - there are beautiful pictures of pleasing combinations - this is helpful for grouping or regrouping for better impact. The plant combinations not only look good together they live well together - similar sun, soil and water needs this is something I found really helpful.- Continuous bloom - It is tricky to plan across seasons many of us have a good season and others that don't look as good. There are pictures of several gardens in each season so you can see how this works and what to expect.- Flower Catalog - this is the most helpful guide/encyclopedia I've ever seen. This is a shorter list than some which help focus your planning. It has recommended (and not) cultivars with very helpful graphic that shows sun need, height, bloom time and color as well as plant shape. I was surprised to learn there is great variety in bloom time for different cultivars of the same plant. For example, 10 different day lilies with bloom times that range from early summer to late fall. This is very helpful for planning your garden bloom season and putting nice combinations together.- This book has a great selection of plants for northern climates - many choices for my zone 4 garden, which does not always happen.If I could start over again I would start with this book to plan my gardens and find specific cultivars. I'd buy more of each plant and try to avoid the temping but often not satisfying variety of plants in garden stores. The best companion book for this one is The Perennial Care Manual by Nancy J Ondra which provide great how to plant and care for your garden and specific plants including great info on pruning.

I've been a gardener for many years, yet missed many of the points that Lee makes in this wonderful new practical guide to planning your flower gardens. For example, many times I've see on a plant tag that the height is 24 inches, but didn't realize until the end of the first year that I'd put it in the wrong spot because its foliage is a mere 3 inches all season, with an eventual spindly flower spike that may get to 24 inches, but the plant as a whole belong in the front of the garden. Lee categorizes the plants not just by height but by shape, so you grasp how the plant is likely to fill the spot.She has carefully selected about 200 plants and organized them by blooming time, color and height to make it easy to pick what will work for your space. Then each plant has a picture and writeup, including how to pronounce the name (thank you!) that gives comfortable advice from her considerable experience. For example "Be prepared to pull out seedlings all over the place, but it's worth it for this purple-foliaged, nicely textured plant. Can easily engulf its neighbors if not kept in check." (p149)She dedicates preliminary chapters to useful advise on making a garden work. "If you want to minimize maintenance, try to choose plants that look good even when they've gone by. For example...white astilbes go through an ugly brownish white phase before developing relatively attractive seed heads. In fact, white flowers generally die badly and go through an unfortunate phase." (p33) "Successful perennial design isn't all about flowers. Starting with a framework of plants whose foliage looks great all season long is probably the single best way to create a good perennial bed." (p36)There are five sample gardens where she illustrates the steps for planning and executing the garden, with pictures to inspire you. The book is full of pictures, and my only regret is the lack of pictures at the end where she talks about plants for special conditions. None of these made it into the favored group because of one problem or another, but some sounded intriguing and I would have liked a picture of each.The book ends with list of recommended plants for special needs "Will grow in heavy clay soil," "Deer Resistant," etc. and a comprehensive index and list of resources.Whether you are a beginner or more experienced, this book will help you plan and maintain beautiful gardens. I wish it had come into my life a long time ago, it would have saved me from a lot of mistakes.

As someone who's never planted a garden bed before, I am bit apprehensive about spending a lot of money on plants (yes, they are expesive) with a good risk it will be ugly or fail. In my effort to get this right, I've read almost a dozen of perennial books and NONE come close to this one. There are good tips and peices of info to take from others, but in reality you only need one - and this is it.The info is simple to understand, the illustrations are clear, and the step-by step approach is GREAT for someone who is analytical and likes organization. Lee Schneller took a lot of the hard work of figuring this stuff out and organized for you into nice little charts. She also describes plant varieties in plenty of detail, as well as provides a list of NO GO's.I found it interesting to read what other books said about the plants that she said "DO NOT USE" and it became apparent that Lee Schneller knows what she is talking about, and other authors simply didn't have the experience.Anyway - this is the one. No need to look further.

Focussed on what flowers are in bloom at what part of the season. The book's back half is the best part. It's a visual a catalog that lists about 200 flower varieties with a photo and beside it a graph showing sun requirements, height, zone, shape, length and time of bloom, color. Much of this is in indicated with symbols, but the whole list of symbols is right down on the bottom of each page. A few suggested design combinations but not much in the way of whole bed plans. But the flower catalog is worth the price of the book.

Un sistema para combinar flores. Me ha gustado bastante. He echado de menos mas ejemplos, que es lo que buscamos los aficionados, pero a pesar de eso es un libro bien construido

I have many gardening books. She helps you with layout, picking colours and covering the whole season with blooms. Excellent speaker

very good book especially for the novice gardener with lots of tips and hints no need to buy another unless wanted to