P. Allen Smith's Container Gardens: 60 Container Recipes to Accent Your Garden (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Just as stylish accessories bring a room to life, gorgeous planted containers are the finishing touch for every garden home. With this book, America’s favorite gardener, P. Allen Smith, shows how to create a beautiful container garden in a matter of minutes, in an innovative recipe-style format complete with ingredients lists, step-by-step planting instructions, and advice on how to effectively display these colorful accents.

Beautiful and versatile, these container designs are the perfect solution for decks, porches, balconies, and gardens that need a focal point or a splash of color. Each container recipe fulfills one of the 12 Principles of Design that Allen established in his first bestselling book, P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home. As a result, the container will wonderfully frame the view from a window, offer a welcoming reception in an entryway, help to establish a sense of rhythm along a walkway, or extend your home’s color and décor into the garden. Allen shares the secrets he uses to make his eye-catching arrangements, as well as special planting and display tips for placement in your garden. The designs range from sophisticated to casual, yet the instructions are so easy to follow that you can assemble these containers in no time at all—even with little or no gardening experience. There are recipes for every season of the year, to ensure that you can enjoy lush container gardens year-round.

A special resource section includes a complete plant directory, tips on how to select the right container to complement your garden’s style, grooming and plant-care guidelines, and basic instructions for planting pots, window boxes, and hanging baskets. Lavishly illustrated with more than 150 photographs, this book is sure to inspire seasoned gardeners as well as beginners interested in enhancing the beauty of their Garden Home with P. Allen Smith’s signature container designs.

About the Author

P. Allen Smith, one of the best-known gardeners in the United States today, is host of the syndicated television show P. Allen Smith Gardens and the public television show P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home. He makes regular appearances on CBS’s Saturday Early Show and The Weather Channel’s gardening spots. He also gives workshops and lectures and makes home and garden show appearances nationwide. His first book, P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home, was a bestselling gardening title of 2003 and was honored by the Garden Writers of America with the Garden Globe Award of Achievement. Visit him at pallensmith.com.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400053439
• ISBN-13: 978-1400053438
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 8.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #140,293 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Takes All The Guesswork Out Of Container Gardens, April 1, 2005

By	G. Paula (Clifton, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've read how-to books that had pretty pictures and were very inspiring but in the end still left me wondering how-to. This is not one of those books. Yes, there are lovely photos. And yes, I did feel moved to get out there and get my hands dirty. However, it also contains very detailed, specific instructions on how to create the container gardens illustrated. There was also some more general information on how I could adapt the given recipes to my own ideas. I recommend this book highly.

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eye candy and inspiration, April 12, 2005

By	W. Oliver (Alabama) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

P. Allen Smith is back and he is still wearing that blue shirt and khaki pants but at least his ideas for container gardening are more colorful. His second book pretty much follows the same format as his first - glossy pages in front and a section of thick paper pages in back. As with the first, the photographs are outstanding.

This is a book of "recipes" for putting together beautiful color-coordinated containers with contrasting foliage. Some of the containers are more beautiful than the plants themselves and may prompt many readers to start shopping for their planters at antique sales. Each recipe spells out the ingredients - the type container and number and quantity of each plant. A photo and list of tips are also included.

The latter section of the book is quite informative and contains articles on stocking a potting shed (hmmm, the first item is a copy of his Garden Home Journal), selecting the right container for the setting, how to "age" a container, clean terra-cotta pots, waterproof containers, plant a standard pot, a hanging basket and a window box, and a plant directory of all the plants he mentions in the book.

It is quite obvious that these gorgeous containers were put together with plants fresh from the nursery (or florist) and I question how some of them would look after the growing season kicks in. For example, he recommends using the rose "La Marne" in one arrangement and even though he is using a large container, I know that this rose gets quite large and I'm not sure how it would look surrounded by coleus and petunias!?! The same goes for other plants like Kopper King hibiscus, etc. Still, I'm sure a lot of it is trial and error and if you want a book to inspire, this one will surely do it.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice book for a beginner...., December 17, 2005

By	Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

What's not to like about P.Allen Smith's approach to gardening? A favorite of Public Television fans, and the fellow who pops up on the Weather channel, Smith is a font of information for the new home gardener. In his nifty new book CONTAINER GARDENS he shows once again that he has many answers to questions the novice might have about a particular topic. Smith follows the seasons of the year discussing what you might display when spring arrives (bulbs and other spring flowers), summer heat bakes everything (some plants like it hot), fall colors the garden, and winter deposits snow and icicles. I must confess, I generally empty most of my pots when late fall arrives as few are frost proof, but I have purchased some containers in recent years that can weather the coldest temperatures and their contents survive freezing. Smith discusses the pots and pot materials you can use to defy temperature extremes be they hot or cold.

Smith suggests winter is the time when the garden is most subtle with its barks, berries and winter blooms, and last year I prepared a few winter containers using ideas he describes in this book. For one thing, pansies seem to be able to stand cold weather and often on a mild winter day their cheerful little faces pop through the snow to greet you. Some bulbs like Galanthus (snow drops) and Scilla will bloom early and give you a hint of the nice weather to come. Hellebores (and Crocus in my Virginia garden) are famous for their winter appearance, as noted in the Christmas carol "Lo a Rose Er Blooming" and small evergreen plants such as miniature hollies and needled trees also can be used to great effect. You can also try your hand at indoor pots. If you work outdoors, the key is to use a weatherproof container so the contents don't freeze and crack the sides of the pot. Smith's book is a great book for beginners and those of us who have been gardening a while.