Fallscaping: Extending your Garden Season into Autumn [Paperback]

Nancy J. Ondra (Author), Stephanie Cohen (Author), Rob Cardillo (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2007

Why should the joys of puttering in the garden be relegated to spring and summer when autumn has so much to offer? Enjoyable temperatures and more dependable rainfall in much of the country extend the growing season and allow the gardener to spend more time enjoying the garden and less time watering. Those final splendid months before winter's chill offer hospitable conditions for an impressive array of flowers, foliage, berries, and seedheads.

Nancy J. Ondra and Stephanie Cohen, two top garden writers and teachers, team up to show readers how to achieve three-season garden color. Join them on a detailed tour through dozens of plants that bring life and color to late-season gardens. Ondra and Cohen identify all the key fall-specific players and explain how to combine them with multiseason workhorse plants to create gardens that move gracefully from spring through the riotous days of summer and into autumn's golden weeks.

Ten complete garden plans put everything together for autumn-loving gardeners. Particularly stunning in the fall but designed to deliver multiseason appeal, they cover a range of growing conditions and color themes. The authors wrap up the season (and the book) with a garden care calendar featuring tips and techniques on how to plant, prune, and maintain gardens all season long so they remain glorious throughout the fall, as well as dozens of suggestions for how to prepare gardens for winter.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pennsylvania gardeners Ondra and Cohen (Perennial Gardener's Design Primer) bring imaginative ideas, practical techniques and new inspiration to autumn, that often-neglected tail end of the gardening year. According to the authors, the key players of fallscaping include the multicolored foliage of trees, grasses and other plants; flashy seedheads and berries; long-blooming perennials; late-blooming sedums, coneflowers, asters and goldenrod; the surprising fall-blooming crocuses, daffodils and lilies; and vines like honeysuckle and sweet autumn clematis. Ondra and Cohen submit a number of fall-friendly garden plans, complete with shopping lists, from a high and dry garden of echinaceas, lavenders and feather reed grass to a vegetable, herb and flower kitchen garden of peppers and basils (to be brought inside before cold weather) and kale and chard (to carry the harvest into winter), with colorful touches of alpine strawberries, sunflowers and pansies. Interspersed throughout are Fall Techniques, with practical, down-to-earth information on how to divide perennials and design suggestions on planning paths, as well as more wacky ideas like spray-painting seedheads. The book ends with a Fall Garden Care Primer, delineating ways to evaluate your garden, improve your soil, build new beds, take cuttings, prepare plants for winter, store your tools and care for your lawn (a long section). Full of useful details and lush photographs, this book rounds out the growing year and may fill a gap in many a gardening library. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gardens in fall are often deemed the poor stepchildren of their showier spring and summer counterparts, and there is simply no good reason why this should be the case. With their dazzling foliage colors, vivid blossoms, and tantalizing berries, fall gardens abound with sensory treats. In their engrossing and enthusiastic look at the marvels of autumn gardening, renowned garden writers Ondra and Cohen reveal the wealth of suitable and stunning plants destined to be the stars of any garden setting. Profiling trees and shrubs prized for their brilliant foliage, ornamental grasses treasured for their ethereal seedheads, and hardy bulbs cherished for their surprising versatility, Ondra and Stephanie Cohen encourage gardeners to think beyond the traditional chrysanthemum/aster/goldenrod garden palette. With helpful sidebars covering such topics as invasive species and debris disposal; full-color illustrations of inventive planting designs for dozens of landscape challenges; and a comprehensive, basic care primer, Ondra and Cohen's vibrant and authoritative guide is a must-have resource for those wishing to maximize their garden's potential. Haggas, Carol --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (September 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580176801
• ISBN-13: 978-1580176804
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #997,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Fall Scaping" is very strongly recommended for any gardener with an interest in continuing to maximize their gardens, November 3, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fallscaping: Extending your Garden Season into Autumn (Paperback)

It past years, the fall season was considered as one of harvesting and getting flower beds and gardens cleaned up and ready for the winter. However the autumn of the year with its rainbow of foliage colors, visually attractive fruits, berries, and seedheads, and mild climatic conditions have changed the thinking of dedicated gardeners and landscapers as to what can be accomplished before the setting in of winter snows. This new concept of continuing to garden and brighten late-season landscapes is called 'fall scaping'. Now there is an illustrated instruction manual called "Fall Scaping: Extending Your Garden Season Into Autumn" which is a collaboration by horticultural experts Nancy J. Ondra and Stephanie Cohen featuring ten complete garden plans that combine flowers, trees, shrubs, ground covers, and grasses that are not only visually impressive in the fall, but designed to provide three-season appeal over a wide range of post-summer growing conditions. Of special note is a 'Fall Garden Care Primer' offers tips and techniques on planting, transplanting, staking, pruning, and maintaining gardens all year long. There is also cogent counsel on preparing plants for winter, as well as properly cleaning and storing gardening hand tools and power equipment. Thoroughly 'user friendly' and profusely illustrated by the full color photography of Rob Cardillo, "Fall Scaping" is very strongly recommended for any gardener with an interest in continuing to maximize their gardens during September, October, and November.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fall Scaping, October 25, 2011

By 

Deborah L. Kucken - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fallscaping: Extending your Garden Season into Autumn (Paperback)

Great book. Lots of information and easy reading. Enjoy looking at the pictures and planting information. Already started planting more grasses for next fall color.