Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens by Lauren Springer Ogden and Scott Ogden: A review


(Cross-posted from Gardening With Nature.)
All over the country, gardeners are facing the realities of restricted water availability. Water-use restrictions are now commonplace, not only in dry climate areas like the Southwest, but in the Northeast, the South and the West and Mid-West. It really is a nation-wide phenomenon, one that is likely to get worse as global warming continues unabated. Even in areas that do not yet have water restrictions, low-water plants are an important ingredient in planning a sustainable garden. What's a poor gardener to do?

Gardeners, after all, want their gardens to be beautiful and interesting and the common impression of a low-water garden is that it is a boring space with a limited plant selection. Lauren Springer Ogden and Scott Ogden have written a book that proves to us that this does not have to be the case. Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens: 200 Drought-Tolerant Choices for All Climates is a wonderfully practical and usable guide to what the authors consider to be the 200 best plants for low-water gardens. These are tough plants that are guaranteed to thrive under such dry conditions.

Each individual plant entry includes the common and botanical name for the plant, as well as information about the regions for which the plant is best adapted, growth and care information, notes on pests and diseases, and, of course, a picture of the plant. Moreover, the guide includes a wide variety of plants, from trees to succulents, perennials to bulbs, all selected for their wide adaptability and ornamental value. 

The Ogdens cover both humid and arid parts of zones 4 to 10 and offer choices for gardens from coast to coast. The guide also has information about companion plants and includes creative design ideas. It really is one of the most user-friendly guides that I have found. It is readily accessible to the novice gardener as well as the more experienced ones.

The writers are garden designers and horticulturists who have a wide range of experience in various climates, plants, and planting styles both in the United States and Europe. We are lucky that they have chosen to share that experience with us. I can recommend their book wholeheartedly for those gardeners who, like myself,  are genuinely interested in creating a sustainable garden.

(A copy of this book was provided to me at no cost by the publisher for the purposes of this review.)

Comments

  1. BloggeRJuly 24, 2021 at 3:10 AM

    I really loved reading your blog. It was very well authored and easy to understand. Unlike other blogs I have read which are really not that good.Thanks alot! شركة تنسيق حدائق بالرياض

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...
Read more

The Investigator by John Sandford: A review

Image
  I have read a few of John Sandford's books in the Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport. This book is a literal offspring of that series. It's the first in a series featuring Davenport's adopted daughter Letty Davenport. Letty is in her mid-20s and a graduate of Stanford. She works for a U.S. senator named Christopher Colles in a desk job but she's bored with her assignments. Then the senator offers her a chance to go into the field as a liaison between his office and the Department of Homeland Security.  In her first assignment in that position, she is sent to Texas along with DHS investigator John Kaiser to try to find out what is happening in regard to thefts of crude oil. The senator is not so concerned about the lost oil but wants to know where the money from its sale is going. Who is selling the oil and what they are doing with the profits? The suspicion is that a particularly nasty militia group led by a woman is involved. Letty and Kaiser head out to Texas, de...
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...
Read more