Customer Reviews

Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this book - it's priceless. Texas can be a tough place to grow plants. This book concisely helps the reader to find plants that will not only survive but thrive through extremes of drought and flood, heat and cold. It is SO necessary, especially since most nurseries seem to sell non-native plants which are unsuited to live here for more than one year without lots of pampering, chemicals, and TONS of water. This book would make a great house-warming present for new homeowners in Texas. This book contains: beautiful color closeups of the plants described, their latin and common names (critical when trying to make a purchase), and growing conditions and range within the state. It also has example garden layouts for each major growing region within the state. I used these heavily when designing my own backyard garden. The only thing I worry about is that the publishing company went out of business and this book is soon to be completely out of print! Get copies while you still can.

I used this book for my backyard project in Houston. My overwhelming impression was - hey, this is written to help me do what I'm doing right now! The content is aimed directly at making good plant selections. Each plant is well and usefully illustrated in color on the same page as the description - a simple point so often missed in other books. Every plant is rated in the decisive essentials - size, sun/shade, wet/dry, clay/sand etc., again a simple point so often absent. The descriptions are fun to read but content is always relevant to a decision with no nonsense. I wore out my copy and passed it on when I moved from Texas.

If you want info about native species of plants to use in Texas (or the SW U.S.), this is the book. And if you want landscaping plans for landscaping your Texas property with great species of native plants, this is the book. Sally Wasowski is the best! I'm so happy it's available again! It's been a while.

With all the environmental degredation that we have caused, it is heartening to know that we can do something in our own way. Landscape with native plants! This book is the bible on how to do so in Texas. It is conveniently organized by categories (example: groundcovers, trees, shrubs, etc.) and provides specific garden plans for every region in Texas so that the novice gardener can get some great ideas. What's more, the book is fun to read.

This is the best book I have found with information about TX native plants and it has great ideas for TX Native Plant Lanscaping for all regions of TX, from the Heat and Humidity of East TX to the heat,cold, and wind of the Panhandle. A must have information book in this era of water shortages.

This book is a groundbreaking gardening book in that it not only identifies hundreds of native plants, but shows how to landscape with them effectively. Colorful photography, theme garden desigfns, regional descriptions. Texas readers call it their "gardening bible.&quo

Providing both a catalogue of native plants and a sample landscape for each region of Texas made this book invaluable to me as a beginning gardener.

This is a highly useful, and useable, book outlining the native Texas plants that have significant gardening interest. I only wish I could have gotten a hardback version, because the binding is getting quite a lot of use ;) . It is well-illustrated, offers an interesting site-plan example for each of the various soil/climate regions in Texas, and contains a good deal of useful information.

My only wish would be for more information regarding adapting plants to areas outside of their original regions, especially how to accomidate them, if possible, in the Houstom area, because many of the native species listed seem to come from drier regions that don't have gumbo-clay soil.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to Texas gardeners and to gardeners elsewhere interested in utilizing these plants. Although I've heard it said that mixing native plant species with exotics will end with the exotics taking over, I nevertheless think that a wide variety of gardeners could use various plants in the book to replace a number of the exotic, high-maintenence plants that are unfortunately common, and less interesting.

I love this book - it's priceless. Texas can be a tough place to grow plants. This book concisely helps the reader to find plants that will not only survive but thrive through extremes of drought and flood, heat and cold. It is SO necessary, especially since most nurseries seem to sell non-native plants which are unsuited to live here for more than one year without lots of pampering, chemicals, and TONS of water. This book would make a great house-warming present for new homeowners in Texas. This book contains: beautiful color closeups of the plants described, their latin and common names (critical when trying to make a purchase), and growing conditions and range within the state. It also has example garden layouts for each major growing region within the state. I used these heavily when designing my own backyard garden. The only thing I worry about is that the publishing company went out of business and this book is soon to be completely out of print! Get copies while you still can.

This is one of my favorite TX landscaping books that stays out of the bookcase all through the growing season. You will find it invaluable as a resource to TX natives, especially if you are new to gardening the the Lone Star State.

The part I found most valuable is the breakdowns of the various planting regions. I don't think I would have had as much success with my landscape without this section.

Gardening in TX is hard enough what with trying to find native plants in the big box stores. All they seem to carry is a few cultivars that are only marginally successful in our brutal summers with year round water restrictions. This book gives you the skinny on how well native plants will do where you put them and how best to care for them.

I highly recommend this book.