Focusing on her garden near Seattle as a launching point, author Ann Lovejoy muses on dozens of common and unusual plants. Using a series of full-color illustrations and corresponding planting diagrams, she shows how gardeners in all parts of the country can take the concept of border-building and apply it to the urban garden, where space is often limited.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This authoritative but mildly irreverent guide affords sensible encouragement to the novice gardener and refreshing company for the veteran. In some 50 brief pieces that track the gardening seasons from January through December, Lovejoy ( The Year in Bloom ) discusses gardens that follow a border (for example, a fence or driveway) and often contain a wide variety of plants, from flowers to shrubs to herbs. A few of the book's many topics include trendy plants like "Moonbeam," a sunflower relative; solutions for the problems of "marauding" cats and pilfering squirrels; primroses, trees and shrubs that give a garden "backbone"; cold composting; fast-growing plants for new gardens; and preparation for the first freeze of the winter. The text bubbles with good humor, as in "Daffodil Souffle," where the author takes pleasure in flowers planted in a souffle dish while her husband eyes them with disgust--they're monopolizing his favored cooking vessel. Appendixes list mail order nurseries and seed suppliers as well as gardening societies and materials for further reading. Garden Book Club selection. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very good regional guide for the experienced gardener.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Border in Bloom (Paperback)
This book could also be used to advantage by gardeners in coastal areas of northern California. Lovejoy takes one through the calendar in a Northwest garden, detailing flowers and shrubs in bloom and garden tasks appropriate to the season. She includes lots of recommendations for design combinations and mentions of unusual plants - with clues in an appendix about where to locate them. Ideas on siting and caring for plants specific to our cool rainy winters/cool dry summers are also valuable. The book contains a through-the-seasons planting guide for a 20' x 40' garden, parts of which could be abstracted for almost any border, large or small. This book is chattier and more personal than some of Lovejoy's more recent works, which I find charming. Drawbacks: 1) The book was apparently put together from a series of separate essays, which occasionally shows - transitions are not always smooth from one chapter to the next. 2) Lovejoy gardens in the warmest part of the Puget Sound area, and her plant picks reflect that - it would be nice if she had included more information on hardiness zones, at least for the more marginal varieties. That said, this will join my collection of indespensable references for my zone 7 Pacific Northwest garden.
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