Make a Californian home landscape more attractive and functional with California Home Landscaping. Like the other titles in this series, this book contains three parts: Design Portfolio, Guide to Installations, and Plant Portraits. In the “Design Portfolio” section, readers will find 48 designs created by landscape professionals in California. “Guide to Installations” explains how to install the plants, paths, patios, and arbors used in the designs. More than 200 of the best plants for the region are fully described in “Plant Portraits”. Clearly written in a friendly style and with 470 color photographs and paintings, California Home Landscaping provides everything readers need to know to landscape like a pro.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars excellent resource
This landscape guide is an excellent tool for your Texas landscape. One of the best items (other than full color renderings), is that the book show you what plants will look like from initial planting to full-grown plants. I would highly recommend it.

5 Stars Great Book!!
I’m a certified Master Gardener and I find this book so helpful and really good for Texas landscapes. It is clear and has great illustrations. This book should be in every Texas gardener’s book collection!

5 Stars Best landscape book for new home owners…
Having recently purchased my first home I picked up five different gardening books. I don’t even know where the other four have gone, but now I have two of this one. It’s a great guide which covers everything from plants that should thrive in the area (including care, size, and how to select), to various designs for commonly-found areas around your home.

It even covers various landscape construction projects such as fences, walks, and patios, and is well-written and illustrated throughout.

[...]

5 Stars Texas Home Landscaping
New edition is a wealth of knowledge for each area of Texas. Sections on walkways and paths and sections on specific plants for your area are the best I’ve read.

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Southeast Home Landscaping

Southeast Home Landscaping

Southeast Home Landscaping is an updated, expanded edition of Creative Homeowner+s award-winning best seller on landscaping southeast-style. Readers will find inspiring ideas for making the home landscape more attractive and functional. The 50 plus featured designs are created by landscape professionals from the region and use more than 200 plants that thrive in the southeast. Detailed instructions for projects such as paths, patios, ponds, and arbors are also included. Over 450 full-color photos and paintings are complemented by easy, step-by-step instructions. The southeast will be in full bloom with Southeast Home Landscaping.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Great help book for planning your garden
This book has great pictures, design layouts and recommended plants to use together. I refer to it often.

5 Stars Excellent book for landscape ideas
If you don’t want to rely on your own creativity for landscaping your property, you need to check out this book. It features 54 landscape designs covering almost any situation, like entryways, streetwalk plantings, corner gardens, slopes, shady areas, woodland gardens, passageways, gardens under trees, mailbox plantings, etc. Every design is beautifully drawn and lists every plant that is included. The plants can then be looked up in the plant directory in the back of the book for more detailed information. An installation guide gives detailed instructions and helpful illustrations on how to build patios, pathways, trellises, gates, ponds, retaining walls, and more. The book also features detailed sections on other landscaping issues such as preparing the soil for planting, buying plants, planting basics, caring for plants, pruning roses, training a vine on a support, and caring for perennials (complete with a list of deer resistant plants). Highly recommended!

4 Stars Southeast Home Landscape
The book was very nice with lots of plans but the cover had about a 3″ cut from what looked like a utility knife.

5 Stars LOVE THIS BOOK….
Anyone who loves to garden but who has no idea how to start will love this book. The photographs are incredible, the designs are easy to understand and its written in clear and concise terms for the novice gardner to understand and learn from.

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Landscaping With Fruit Strawberry ground covers blueberry hedges grape arbors and 39 other luscious fruits to make your yard an edible paradise A Homeowners Guide

Landscaping With Fruit Strawberry ground covers blueberry hedges grape arbors and 39 other luscious fruits to make your yard an edible paradise A Homeowners Guide

Fruit trees, shrubs, and vines are true two-for-one plants. Many varieties are strikingly beautiful — well suited to doing double duty as delicious sources of sweet, organic fruit and as ornamental additions to the home landscape. Backyard fruit plants also tie in perfectly with the growing locavore movement. It’s difficult to find food that’s more local than one’s own backyard!

“Luscious landscaping,” as author Lee Reich calls it, takes fruit-bearing plants off the commercial farm and replants the prettiest and tastiest specimens in suburban and rural yards. Spring blossoms, summer and fall fruit, and the year-round presence of the plants themselves bring a special magic to the home landscape. Pillowy pink blossoms on peach branches or the bright orange fruit of persimmon trees perk up their surroundings with color and drama.

Beautiful plants, yes, but these landscaping additions also provide sweet, nutritious fruit. Homegrown, organic varieties bear almost no resemblance to commercially produced fruits,which are bred and selected to withstand shipping and refrigerated storage conditions. It’s hard to believe that Alpine strawberries and those grown in California and shipped across the country are even related!

Fruitscaping is a complete, no-nonsense guide to growing temperate-zone fruit, with information on everything from planting and pruning to pest control and harvesting. Readers will find all the basics of landscaping with fruit — site analysis, climate assessment, understanding soil and sun, plant selection, and optimizing growing conditions. An encyclopedia of 38 plants includes information for each entry on hardiness, size, potential pests, special care and pruning, harvesting, and visual appeal.

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Taylors Master Guide to Landscaping

Taylors Master Guide to Landscaping

Comprehensive and easy to follow, Buchanan’s companion volume to Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening covers just about all the features that can be included in home landscapes–from lawns and foundation plantings to fences, driveways, bridges, steps, outdoor rooms, pools and outdoor lighting. Buchanan encourages homeowners to think carefully about the specific requirements of the site (topography, shape of the lot, size of the budget, etc.) before beginning a landscaping project. Then home landscapers can follow her step-by-step instructions and carry out the project on their own or use her tips on hiring professionals to do the work. Buchanan offers a wealth of practical information, from advice on seeing the overall character of a home and its setting to opinions about details, such as which materials are best for paths and walkways. There are also suggestions for choosing and caring for trees, shrubs, vines, ground cover and perennials, with lists of plants appropriate for individual situations. An interesting aspect of the book is the author’s emphasis on seeing the home landscape in relationship to the surrounding neighborhood and the community as a whole; there are hints, for example, on how to counteract the antisocial impression made by a wall or a fence erected in front of a house. Buchanan’s clearly written, abundantly illustrated guide should go a long way toward helping amateurs have the courage to tackle what often seems a daunting task. 425 color photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Taylor’s Master Guide to Landscaping
A great guide for those of us wanting to learn more about landscaping. It is plainly written so that anyone who wishes to start a new landscaping project will not feel overwhelming but empowered to tackle the job!

5 Stars A big help.
This book has helped me come up with a plan for the rough land that I have purchased with my new home.

5 Stars It wont replace the landscape architect, but it comes close
This is the most often used book I continually return to for landscaping reference and guidance. It’s well written and will have you on the way to improving your landscape after the first read. One reviewer mentions Rita is opinionated. This is true. So you’ll have to read around some of the opinions and decide for yourself what holds true for your property.

If you need just one landscaping book, I would highly recommend this book. It has a great balance of ideas, pics, & text. It is well structured and organized.

5 Stars Most comprehensive text on planning a garden
I admire Rita Buchanan’s style.

In a time of the pre-digested, summarized ‘Idiot’s Guides’, she addresses landscape design in a methodical and logical progression. The text doesn’t get bogged down in species’ names and planting plans, but instead opens our minds to the larger questions of overall goals and needs. As such, I have found this to be the perfect companion as I plan my garden, opening my mind to the wider possibilities that I hadn’t considered.

Having said that, you might be disappointed if you are looking for a book to ‘dip into’ for rapid solutions. I have found this book more rewarding if you have 30 minutes to spare with a comfy chair and cup of coffee, rather than just a 3 minute break.

4 Stars Comprehensive and well designed; sometimes too opinionated
The book is what its title says and that’s good - a master guide to landscaping. While I respect Ms. Buchanan’s opinions on matters of landscaping since she obviously is versed enough to complete this well done and comprehensive book, it seems to me that her opinions sometimes get in the way of common, useful, tried and true landscaping practices. Example: On page 229 she adamantly states, “…Disregard anyone who tells you to set hedge plants in a zigzag pattern…”, yet the picture above depicts just that and, quite frankly, it’s commonly recommended to do so. As a designer, I do use that technique for hedge planting because it creates a billowy effect and it’s more visually interesting, in many instances. The point is, that statement is an opinion that may not be based on anything more than personal taste.

Having said that, it’s an excellent and in-depth guide to the extensive field of landscaping and a very good book just to see what her educated opinions might be. Keep an open mind and refer also to other more task-specific books and expertise when faced with landscape challenges. This book certainly will entertain one with its views, many of them interesting and useful.

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Mid Atlantic Home Landscaping

Mid Atlantic Home Landscaping