University of Vermont Extension 
Department of Plant and Soil Science

 
Subtitled "Perfect Combinations from America's Top Garden Designers", this lavishly illustrated book provides design ideas for most any garden in any region.  This is done through examples of plant combinations, using six plants or fewer, from 105 gardens of some of the top garden designers across the country.  Accompanying the close-up photo of the plant combination is a brief description of the design, the plants, and a very useful designer tip.

Examples of designer tips are letting plants seed themselves for a little "naturalism" in your garden, adding some annuals for color to perennial beds and rotating them out through the season, and allowing vines such as clematis to climb through trees and shrubs for a "Zen" effect in the words of the author.  Then there are practical tips with some gardens, such as how to work around prickly plants and not get stuck, how to make a realistic rocky outcrop for plants such as agaves and yucca, and substitutes for invasive plants such as barberry. 

The book is written in a very readable and fun style, with catchy titles for each featured garden such as "electric blanket hillside" for a groundcover with eye-catching color, the "call of angel's trumpets" for a garden featuring this plant (Brugmansia 'Snowbank'), or "traffic triangle tango" for three effective plants used in a triangular traffic island.

Even though most the gardens are of known designers, or from public gardens such as Longwood in Pennsylvania, one aspect I like and that I use in my own talks is that simple plant combinations can be gleaned from these and used in the smallest of home landscapes and within most budgets.  For western gardens the yellow ice plant and blue Turkish speedwell are titled "Turkish-African ground cover fusion".  A garden for the east that caught my eye with its simplicity and contrast was the light green palm sedge under a 'Royal Frost' purple birch.  For a simple and less dramatic combination, try the pink spring blooms from garden designer Stephanie Cohen of cutleaf lilac and 'Forest Pansy' redbud.  A related tip from this designer is to "let your redbud dance with itself", allowing it space and giving it proper pruning only if needed.

Another aspect I like of the author is his overriding premise for writing the book, as set forth in the introduction, that contrary to what many marketers would have you believe, there is still a passion for gardening and using plants by many.  It is not just about interior decorating moved outside, not about "simply supporting the masonry trade" as with plants to decorate walls and patios, and not just plants for "behind the Jacuzzi" mentality.