The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden

Basically covers everything you need to create your own garden. Lots of sample gardens to copy and to inspire you!!

I got this book because I am trying to create some perennial beds in my large yard like the ones featured in this book, a "naturalized" look with large swaths of color, texture and form. There is a lot of good, basic information here and I like the three sections--the design basics, some descriptions of classic plant choices, and then some sample layouts and descriptions of successful examples. That's the good. And the photos can serve as inspiration. The bad is that they do not provide the names of the plants featured in the photos, so you have no idea how to recreate the look or even ballpark it unless you are great at identifying perennials very specifically from a distance. Not just the species but the cultivar would have been sooooo helpful. The photos have descriptive text, that's good, but lack plant species specifics. The range of plants covered is rather limited. It's fine as far as my zone goes, you've already been warned by other reviews that if you are in a semi-tropical or arid situation this is not for you and probably not the greatest in an alpine or way up north situation either. But to add to the problems, they do not give the USDA plant zones in the plant descriptions, which would have been an easy add. Lastly, I think there were a limited number of example gardens, which is really what I bought the book for. Particularly with regards to shady situations, which is again, my specific situation. The color palette for shade was limited, even taking in to account that a shade palette already starts out with limitations. The text is small and dense, and while the information is solid, it could have benefited from more sub headings and some "chunking" if that's a word. And some more illustrations or just some way of more visual summaries of the information contained in the dense text. The photos are great but not as illustrative as they could have been with more sidebars on what was actually going on in the photo, for example a photo of a garden and then a graphic illustration of the planting scheme. As it is, you have to be fairly sophisticated in visually assessing plants to read what is going on in the landscape shots. I'll probably refer to this book often and use it, but if I had been in a bookstore with other selections I might not have chosen this one. But such is the book buying environment so I can say that this is a good book and it might be perfect for you bearing in mind the "YMMV" principle.

Rarely has a garden book inspired me to actually make grand changes to my gardens. This book inspired me and gave me the tools needed to make the changes.There are already many excellent reviews here. I think most of the reviews for positive and negative aspects of this book are very fair, and true. This is not a "gardening 101 for idiots" book. You do have to read the book, and study the plans and the pictures. Sometimes you have to go back and forth in the book to find an answer to your immediate question. However, I find Diblik to be a true teacher and if you do "work" with his book, you will come away with the ability to make your own plan that fits into your own garden. One of the reasons that I give this book 5 starts is because it IS a new way of creating a bed, it IS ground-breaking and different than the million garden books we have on our shelves already from the last 50 years. If you think of this as WORKbook for helping you design a bed, I think you'll be very satisfied with this book.You don't have to cookie-cut his plans. I was able to use his ideas and meld them into my existing beds that are not open fields a la Diblik and a la Oudolf. Much of my yard is already established with shrubs/trees/perennials that I do not want to move. If you study his many garden plans (that have no pics), you start to see patterns in how he does his plantings. There are MANY photos in this book, plenty of them will give you the knowledge you need to imagine how these plans might look. He's showing you HOW makes the plans. It would be impractical and impossible to have pics of all of them. (One of the criticisms). Instead, he's sharing his process...how you can take a community of well-chosen plants and use them in endless flexibility to create a special garden, all your own.And, let me say that here in Wisconsin I was able to find many of his recommended plants on clearance in the fall. Fall is a perfect time to plant a garden in most areas of the country. You can save A LOT of money on grasses, etc, by buying them on clearance when everyone else is ignoring the garden centers. The types of plants Diblik recommends are often on steep clearance in autumn: grasses, salvias, nepetas, etc.

Conoscere le piante che volete mettere a dimora nel vostro giardino per avere un'idea delle cure di cui abbisogneranno: ecco ciò di cui tratta questo libro molto ben fatto. Il libro è suddiviso in otto sezioni: 1) capire il tuo giardino; 2) capire le piante; 3) preparare il sito e piantare; 4) cura e manutenzione; 5) piante chiave per giardini di cui avere cura conoscendoli; 6) le piante da giardino; 7) creare la vostra comunità di piante; 8) ritratti di famosi giardinieri. Il volume quindi ci aiuta passo per passo a creare il nostro giardino avendo ben chiare da subito le regole di cura e manutenzione onde non essere esposti a sgradite sorprese più tardi. Le illustrazioni sono molto buone come per qualunque libro di giardinaggio che si rispetti, ma sono gli schemi delle piante con la loro esposizione e cure colturali che fanno la differenza con altri libri. Ottimo libri di complemento nella vostra biblioteca orticola, vedrete...

i am a novice gardener with good imagination. i wanted to buy one of Piet Oudolf’s books first because i would like to plant a naturalistic garden in my backyard. But after reading the reviews i realized that I needed something more instructional and bought this book instead. And what a great decision. This book is great for garden beginners that would like to design a sustainable, beautiful garden. It gives great instructions on how to start the garden, what to do with the soil. I love the that the description of the chosen perennials gives an idea how the plant will perform through the seasons, how it will grow through the years, etc. I really appreciate the author’s planting plans and garden comparison to impressionistic paintings. The language and the content shows how intelligent the author is and he is in love with nature.

Some very excellent information in here, relevant regardless where you are, I like the passion for gardens that comes through from the author. SOME plant suggestions are suited best for areas more south of Winnipeg MB, some are suitable for my area (enough to keep this book as my reference). The inspiration to build a more intriguing garden is definitely from this book.

Soy paisajista, y la verdad que pocos libros de jardinera me aprenden coasa, y este me a servido mucho, y me ha hecho pensar mucho.

I'm creating a meadow. This book has a lot of useful insights into approaches, plant types, etc. However, a significant portion of the book is landscape layout diagrams - that aren't very helpful, in my view.