Capture all the hues of the garden with a few simple brushtrokes and Lorene Edwards Forkner’s inspirational advice on observing color in nature, painting with watercolor, and gardening with joy and intention If you love flowers and the rich colors of the garden, Color In and Out of the Garden is for you. Artist and garden expert Lorene Edwards Forkner shares her simple watercolor techniques for capturing every lovely hue in a miniature artwork. Along the way, she also offers practical advice on topics from painting (no matter your skill level) to gardening mindfully to celebrating life. This delightfully useful and addictively readable little book may just inspire you to begin keeping a garden journal of your own, so you can record favorite plants with just a few simple brushstrokes. Arranged by color, each chapter helps readers sharpen their powers of observation and capture nature’s lovely palette. Plant profiles and personal reflections mingle with creative prompts for making a simple watercolor that helps focus one's attention. Both a mindfulness exercise for seeing garden colors and an easy guide to reproducing them on the page, Forkner guides you through the spectrum with her own watercolors while offering inspiration and a delightful garden respite from everyday stress.

A beautifully photographed guide for gardeners keen to attain the elusive colour-packed 'year-round garden'. Covering ideas on how to use, combine, design with and prolong colour, the book focuses on achievable ways of growing plants of every tone through 12 months of the year. It provides gardeners with an inspiring and surprising palette of plants to furnish their plots with sumptuous colour with detailed lists for Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Bursting with practical advice on establishment and maintenance, the book also embraces plants for pots, cutting, difficult spaces and tiny gardens, and features long-season gardens from around the world.

"Whether you want an instant splash of brilliant seasonal colour, or a sumptuous border with subtle year-round appeal, this book shows myriad ways to put colours together and demonstrates the power of colour in the garden"--Publisher's description.

Though he didn’t realize it at the time, David Lee began this book twenty-five years ago as he was hiking in the mountains outside Kuala Lumpur. Surrounded by the wonders of the jungle, Lee found his attention drawn to one plant in particular, a species of fern whose electric blue leaves shimmered amidst the surrounding green. The evolutionary wonder of the fern’s extravagant beauty filled Lee with awe—and set him on a career-long journey to understand everything about plant colors. Nature’s Palette is the fully ripened fruit of that journey—a highly illustrated, immensely entertaining exploration of the science of plant color. Beginning with potent reminders of how deeply interwoven plant colors are with human life and culture—from the shifting hues that told early humans when fruits and vegetables were edible to the indigo dyes that signified royalty for later generations—Lee moves easily through details of pigments, the evolution of color perception, the nature of light, and dozens of other topics. Through a narrative peppered with anecdotes of a life spent pursuing botanical knowledge around the world, he reveals the profound ways that efforts to understand and exploit plant color have influenced every sphere of human life, from organic chemistry to Renaissance painting to the highly lucrative orchid trade. Lavishly illustrated and packed with remarkable details sure to delight gardeners and naturalists alike, Nature’s Palette will enchant anyone who’s ever wondered about red roses and blue violets—or green thumbs.

Spring-flowering bulbs are the quintessential start of the gardening season. But bulbs are not only for spring, they can add colour and visual interest to your garden all year round. In Colour your Garden Jacqueline van der Kloet shows you how to combine bulbs with the existing plants in your garden. She explains how to choose the right bulb for the right situation, how to plant them for maximum effect and what to expect when you combine established plants with bulbs, both spring-flowering and those that flower in summer and even autumn. There is also inspiring information on planting bulbs for courtyards, balconies and roof terraces. Jacqueline shows there are interesting combinations to be made in pots as well, resulting in spectacular mini gardens that flower for weeks on end. AUTHOR: Jacqueline van der Kloet is one of the most famous garden designers of the Netherlands. She works around the globe and has designed EXPO 2000 in Hannover, River Park in Shen Yang (China), Millennium Park in Chicago and many more. SELLING POINTS: * Practical guide for big gardens and small balconies on how to combine bulbs with existing flowers * Discover different colour combinations and astonishing mini gardens 180 colour illustrations