BOOK REVEIW
THE
WELL-TENDED PERENNIAL GARDEN, Planting & Pruning Techniques
Article and
photos, Anne K Moore
Posted
November 26, 2009
Many gardeners and wannabe gardeners look at
an overgrown perennial bed and shudder. It is easy to lose track of plants in the border. Where are those liatris I planted next
to the Ryan's Pink chrysanthemum?
A quick inspection finds them underneath the flopping mums.
Now, if I listened to Tracy DiSabato-Aust, I would
have cut those mums back several times during their growing season and would
have staked them so that they didn't shade out their neighbors.
THE
WELL-TENDED PERENNIAL GARDEN, Planting & Pruning Techniques, by
Tracy DiSabato-Aust, is a treasure of a book for both novices and know-it-alls.
In it, the author begins, as all
good gardeners do, with the soil.
She then explains the way to figure out the spaces for the flowers
according to their eventual grown-up size.
Many gardens that look good in June melt in the heat
of August and are full of sticks and straw in the fall. If you are not sure just how much good
staking and pruning perennials can do for the look of a garden, just take a
gander at the seasonal photos of the author's garden. Follow her tips and techniques to a beautiful garden worthy
of any tour or party.
More than 130,000 copies of this book have
been sold. A new addition is now
available. It is still the
perennial gardener's bible. Now,
it has journal pages, too, so you can record your successes. (Failures go on the compost heap. No one needs to know.)
Gardeners get muscles from many activities. Add lugging The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by DiSabato-Aust into the garden
along with your pruners. She is a
garden designer, writer, and speaker who knows how to squeeze everything into a
tidy border. A little reading this
winter will open your eyes and your garden next year. Find this book at amazon.com.