The colorful, low-maintenance plants in this book are particularly useful for gardeners who have difficult, steep, rocky, dry, or infertile spots where more finicky plants won't grow.

For all-season color and a bountiful supply of cut flowers for the house, annuals fill a unique niche in a gardener's landscape plans.

No category of plants works harder than ground covers to help a gardener create a beautiful yet low-maintenance landscape. In this book readers will discover the best plants * to stabilize banks and control erosion * to substitute for turf where grass won’t grow or is hard to mow * to line curbs and driveways, where salt will damage ordinary plants * to enhance a landscape with broad, dramatic sweeps.

Flowering shrubs are the belles of the garden ball. Along with such stars as rhododendrons, azaleas, lilacs, and spirea, many other great shrubs for all parts of the country are included in this book.

This fact-filled reference to all aspects of growing classic garden plants includes a mini-encyclopedia listing the best varieties to buy, illustrated instructions on performing garden tasks, suggestions for using plants in the home landscape, and directions on propagating.

Stretch your imagination about the potential of ground covers. Includes hostas, stonecrops, smaller rhododendrons, prayer plants, pyracanthas, box huckleberry, hellebores, daylilies, grasses, alpine willows, and unsupported climbing vines, just to name a few.

Provides information on growing trees, perennials, annuals, grasses, herbs, and bulbs, features the basics of garden design, and talks about environmentally sound controls of pests and diseases.