Customer Reviews

50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants

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Review: 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants:
Tough-but-Beautiful Plants Anyone Can Grow by Tracy Disabato-Aust

As a novice gardener, I am drawn to gardening books with a judicious mix of beautiful pictures and helpful advice. This book caught me with its opening:

I wrote this book because you might be like me. You love to garden, but there is never enough time...I've been a gardener for over thirty years both as an avocation and vocation. I love gardening but I also have countless other passions including spending time with my husband, our teenage son, and our dogs and chickens, as well as being a competitive multisport athlete at the national and international level. So I'm constantly rethinking areas of my garden and seeking beautiful yet tough plants to replace demanding ones. I refer to them affectionately as indomitable - not easily defeated, resolute, unconquerable, determined, and strong. Does this sound like the type of plant for you? These plants should be easy to care for but they should bring passion and excitement into our lives with their colors, textures, shapes, and scents. It's great if the plant is easy to grow, but if it's of minimal ornamental value, who really cares?
-50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants
by Tracy Disabato-Aust

Disabato-Aust selected 50 highly ornamental plants that require minimal care and are either US natives or award winners from around the world. Each plant is able to make a statement in multiple seasons because of its long lasting bloom, color, texture, form or fragrance. I'm particularly glad of this selection process since as an urban gardener, I am limited to container gardening. Even in Brooklyn, space is scarce and valuable - I afford to allocate space to non-performing plants.

Disabato-Aust points out that color doesn't just come from the blossoms, but to encourages us to look at the plant's bark and foliage and fruit as well. The book is full of helpful advice both for selecting plants and for caring for individual specimens.

Disabato-Aust developed a very useful checklist for evaluating plants and divides them into High-Impact Traits and Low-Maintenance Traits.

The High-Impact Traits are:
(1) multi-season interest;
(2) colorful foliage;
(3) long-lasting bloom;
(4) outstanding texture;
(5) and architectural form.

The Low-Maintenance Traits are:
(1) long-lived;
(2) tolerant of heat and humidity;
(3) cold-hardy;
(4) deer resistant (not so critical for us urban gardeners);
(5) resistant to insects and disease;
(6) requires minimal or no deadheading;
(7) prospers without heavy fertilizing;
(8) doesn't require staking, infrequent or no division required for 4 or more years;
(9) infrequent or no pruning required to maintain decent habit, appearance or best flowering;
(10) non-invasive; and
(11) drought tolerant.

The beauty of this gardening book is that you can flip through its pages for a plant that catches your eye and then determine whether it would be a fit for your and your garden. I was surprised to find many of the beautiful specimens that I'd admired to be low maintenance and the book has given me ideas for both for my garden, my mother's small garden unit in Boston's South End, and my uncle's large place in Gloucester.

I highly recommend this book for urban gardeners, novice gardeners, and gardeners who would like to spend less time tending plants and more time enjoying them. It's a great gift book as well.

I had the opportunity to hear the author talk about "50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants" at the 2009 Ohio Nursery & Landscape Association and The Ohio State University Short Course. I especially appreciated that she included woodies as well as perennials in the talk as well as in this book. The book is the perfect addition to any designer's library of reference material. The selection of plants is a virtual "Who's Who" of tough, dependable horticultural fare and opened my palette to some new or underused plants as well. I have already recommended the book as well as the plants to several co-workers.

This book is incredible. Easy to read. Enjoyable. Beautifully illustrated. I recently moved to a new city and plan to use "50 High Impact, Low Care Garden Plants" to select the plants I'll use in my new gardens. I thank Tracy DiSabato-Aust for again sharing her amazing knowledge. I own all three of her books and I treasure them.

From The Well-Tended Perennial Garden to The Well-Designed Mixed Garden, we have learned to expect excellent and practical information, complete with beautiful and enticing plant photographs from Tracy DiSabato-Aust. Her new book does not disappoint. Tracy shares her experience from decades of professional gardening with her choice of 50 plants that have that big wow-factor for which we all are looking as we plan our gardens. From beginners to the most savvy gardeners, everyone will find a new plant (plants!) to try in this fact-packed, extremely attractive volume.

This book is fabulous!! It tells you about fifty of the best garden plants that are going to give that WOW factor and with very little care. After each plant is a list that tells things like "Deer-Resistant, "Tolerates Heat and Humidity." This book is a must have for every gardener. This will change your garden and free up your life.

Nanette

As a gardener I purchased this book to see what 50 plants Tracy had decided upon for low-care plantings. Her choices are well represented of popular and available plants. Superb photos accompany the text, occasionally it would be great to have a photo showing the whole plant, instead of just a small portion of the plant. Close-up shots are welcomed, but plants in a garden setting are also interesting to see.
Some plants have their point of origin stated in the text, but I would like to know the country or area of origin for all the plants listed. Just a small point.
A good read for the gardener wanting to grow low-care plants. Thrilled to see my two top grasses included in the 50....Miscanthus s.'Cosmopolitan',
and Molinia c. 'Skyracer'.

This book is a "must-have" for any busy person who wants to garden but needs plants that don't require all your time. Tracy does a fabulous job describing each plant and rating them with her scoring system. You have deer problems, she tells you deer resistant plants. I like the size of the book also. It's portable. I read mine on a plane trip and now I can't wait to order my deer resistant, low care, high impact plants! Another great book by Tracy!

This book is great. It is very informative and helpful. The pictures are amazing. I recently purchased a home that is in major need of help in the flower bed. I now feel confident that I am able to pick the right plants to liven it up. I also have very few hours to spend on gardening and this book has made me see I can have a beautiful, low maintenance flower bed. Thanks Tracy

I don't usually buy gardening books, but had gotten this one from the library and found it especially helpful. Its title says it all, and the plants I've bought that were recommended by the author are performing wonderfully. Plus, most of the plants are not your everyday varieties, so part of the fun is trying some things new to me. Which brings me to another great part of the book - the listing in the back of nurseries that actually carry many of the plants. I was able to find most of them at the one listed in Hilliard, Ohio. Each plant has a color photo and lots of useful info on it.

This is a very welcome addition to my garden book library. I have all of Tracy Disabato-Austs books which are a great resource as well as beautiful "coffee table" books. I am most excited about this book because its paperback edition makes it easier to use and carry with you, and because I am currently redesigning several beds and I want them to be low maintenance. It has also been a great gift for many of my gardening friends!