The Weather-resilient Garden: A Defensive Approach To Planning & Landscaping

Ice storms in the South. Severe drought in the West and the East. Floods in the Midwest. Brutal, unpredictable weather conditions can devastate yards and gardens. Sadly, the information you find in most gardening books recommends plants with the assumption that the climate will be temperate all the time. But when bad things happen to good gardens, those gardening books aren't much help. Stepping into the breach is The Weather-Resilient Garden, a comprehensive one-of-a-kind, region-by-region reference on how to plan and grow a garden that will flourish in normal conditions and be hardy enough to survive and thrive despite drought, flood, high winds, and extreme hot or cold spells. As part of his "defensive gardening" approach, horticulturist Charles W. G. Smith provides an encyclopedic list of resilient plants, with specific advice for each region of the United States. And for gardeners who regard "hardy" as a synonym for "unattractive," be assured that the plants Smith recommends are as beautiful as they are resilient. Daylilies, for example, score 9.5 out of a possible 10 because they can withstand drought, cold, heat, salt, flooding, ice, snow, wind, and humidity. These lovely garden favorites even help control erosion. Almost as good is the rugosa rose, with a score of 9.0. This lovely, vigorous variety breaks the stereotype of roses as the prima donnas of the garden. The rugosa rose can bounce back from lightning, hail, even fire. Of course, sometimes weather is so violent that even the hardiest gardens are damaged. For those situations, Smith offers detailed problem-solving advice for every contingency--from something as simple as a tree that has lost a limb to a flooded lawn, fromuprooted plants to damaged soil. He even explains what preventive measures you can take to minimize the damage when you know bad weather is on its way. Here, then, is a book that takes a two-fold approach to defending your garden. It teaches you how to outwit the weather by creating a resilient garden landscape before misfortune strikes. And it takes you step-by-step through the process of healing a badly damaged garden. The result is a garden that is every bit as beautiful as it is undaunted by anything the weather can throw at it.