Customer Reviews

Perennial Combinations: Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right from the Start (Rodale Garden Book)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Author Cole Burrell has written a book that is beautiful, thoughtful and practical. Even the best of gardeners has had their share of poorly orchestrated vignettes and disasters but Cole inspires us to try yet again. Perennial Combinations is broken down into categories based on available light and varying cultural conditions making is easy to use and understand. The lush photographs clearly illustrate the points he shares about texture, form and color. Cole's lifetime of experience as a gardener, designer and hort head come to the fore as he encourages us to create tapestries and tell stories with plants. As a a fellow designer I have found this to be an invaluable resource when working with clients. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words and this marvelous book is a great visual aid helping me help clients articulate their likes and dislikes about plants and let them see how plants work in combination. After the introduction of each new combination Cole shares bits of wisdom about the cultural requirements of the various plants, points of fact that are missing in most books on perennials. This is a must have addition to the library for the new gardener as well as the consumate professional.

As a serious new garderner I have been buying tons of gardening books to help me get started and to educate myself. I had no idea, when I purchased this book, that it would become my favorite! I took it on vacation and read it cover to cover, twice. It provides expert information on perennials, and nudges individual creativity with its stunning photos and drawings of beautiful combinations. I have already put in three of Mr. Burrell's garden plans - with some adjustment for personal favorites and have been extremely pleased with the results! I am giving this book as a Christmas gift this year to several gardening friends and would highly recommend it for all gardeners, beginners to master!

Book contains about 344 pages divided into three main sections. The sections are Basic Design (14 pages), Combinations (306 pages), and Mail Order Sources & Index (24 pages).

Each combination discussion (there are over 200) shows a garden photograph, a photo key, and several paragraphs of discussion. Each plant in the photograph is identified to species and variety. Great job!

The discussions reveal growing tricks and tips. The book is full of solid and easy to follow instructions.

This is an excellent book for generating garden design ideas for your own yard. Photographs are awesome (although some images appear to have the flower colors oversaturated - that's not the color they are in my yard :-)

It's my favorite garden design book so far. Very creative!

This book far surpasses other perennial books that I've read. It covers all the bases. It tells you what plants to put in the different parts of your yard (for example, dry, wet, shady, clay soils). It show you had to acheive lovely color and height combinations. It helps you plan for the different seasons of the garden. And, it even tells you how to care for your plants so that you get the most vigorous and sustained performance.

The pictures in this book are excellent, because each plant is well identified -- no more wondering whether the flower referred to is that tall pink thing in the back of the picture, or the short fuzzy one in front. I could easily browse through this book, stopping at pages with combinations I liked, and note the pairing of plant materials as well as the cultivation tips for these particular specimens, which appear on the facing page. One of my favorite gardening books. Useful and attractive.

I usually am hesitant to buy these types of books - because I live in a colder climate (zone 3-4) there are usually not many combinations, styles, etc. to choose from out of an "all inclusive" book. Not the case here! There were plenty of plans and ideas for all zones and everything was very comprehensive in drawings and text. Just within the first few minutes of looking at it I had several ideas for my yard. What's also nice is that it covers everything from small spaces that need just a few plants to fill in to large areas that need coverage. I will definately be referring to this book AND sharing this book for a long time to come!

"Talk about a great combination! Cole Burrell's brilliant design talent blends with his extensive experience as a gardener and a plantsman to make this book both visually dynamic and enormously informative. Not only are there numerous ideas for inspiring design combinations, but practical tips on soil, light, and maintenance requirements for the plants abound. This book should help every gardener-from the beginner to the professional-design gardens that look as good in the landscape as they do on paper." -Tracy DiSabato-Aust, author of The Well-Tended Perennial Garden

Combining perennials in a bed or border for a soothing or striking effect can be a tricky business even for experienced gardeners. Cole Burrell's thorough treatment of this subject in his book, "Perennials Combinations," comes to our rescue.
Through diagrams, photographs,and illustrations, he demonstrates what can be planted in a variety of situations. All this is accompanied by the author's perceptive comments concerning the cultural needs of each recommended plant. But this is not quite enough and Cole goes much further. Page after page of this marvelous book demonstrates a variety of combinations to appeal to a variety of tastes. Looking great is what it's all about and I, for one, as a landscape designer, will find many different combinations that truly appeal to not only what is possible in gardens of this area but what appeals to my artistic taste in renovating a country garden--my own.

Ruby Weinberg-Landscape Designer, Author

PERENNIAL COMBINATIONS by Colston Burrell is another practical and increasingly beautiful Rodale publication (remember those older Rodale volumes printed on coarse pulp paper?). Although this book was published several years ago, it is still a mega-star as far as I am concerned--printed on slick glossy paper and filled with beautiful and clear photographs. The combinations I used worked for me then and they work now in my more mature garden.

Burrell includes many suggestions for the gardener charged with developing an otherwise barren plot into a floriferous spot. Every yard is a collection of ecological zones ranging from dry loose (or compacted) soil to wet mucky bogs. Different combinations of plants work in different circumstances. For example, although I once had a professional gardener tell me Siberian Iris would grow anywhere, that has not been my experience, and Burrell confirms their best showing comes in a relatively damp area (Mine do best in the boggy area where our air conditioning unit drips ceaselessly throughout the summer-check out the lake in the middle of Central Park, Siberian Iris grow all along the shoreline). And speaking of "wet" gardens, Burrell shows ferns, Hosta, flags and various other perennials who either like or can tolerate damp feet combined into a `Garden for Three Seasons.'

Burrell covers almost any situation you can encounter in the garden: shade and wet, shade and dry, hot and dry, hot and wet. Have you just removed a dead tree and are puzzled about what to do to disguise the residual stump? Perhaps you want to grow wild flowers and don't know how or where to begin. Or, perhaps you have prairie-like conditions and wonder what to plant. And by the way, you don't have to live on the Great Plains to have prairie-like conditions, a sunny bank will do or, as in my case, where the driveway meets the street.

Burrell offers many tips and "secrets for success" with whatever condition you may encounter. Sedum and Thyme anyone?

One of the drawbacks of buying gardening books online is that you can't see the photos. If I had thumbed through this book in a bookstore I don't know if I would have purchased it. Not that it doesn't have a lot of good information and ideas, but the photos could be better: the color is garish and over-saturated and the images actually look blurry. Also, many of the plant combo photos are very close up, which doesn't help when you are trying to figure out how to place your perennials when planting. For me, a good gardening book has to not only give useful information and how-tos (which this book does for the most part), but it has to inspire with lovely photos! And that is where this book disappoints. I do like the illustrations of various combinations.

Addendum:

Four years later, I find that I still look through this book every spring for inspiration and ideas. So overall I'd say a good addition to one's gardening library!