Price : $21.94

Product Description

Once maligned as a swampy outpost, the fledgling city of Chicago brazenly adopted the motto Urbs in Horto or City in a Garden, in 1837. Chicago Gardens shows how this upstart town earned its sobriquet over the next century, from the first vegetable plots at Fort Dearborn to innovative garden designs at the 1933 Worlds Fair.
Cathy Jean Maloney has spent decades researching the citys horticultural heritage, and here she reveals the unusual history of Chicagos first gardens. Challenged by the regions clay soil, harsh winters, and fierce winds, Chicagos pioneering horticulturalists, Maloney demonstrates, found imaginative uses for hardy prairie plants. This same creative spirit thrived in the citys local fruit and vegetable markets, encouraging the growth of what would become the nations produce hub. The vast plains that surrounded Chicago, meanwhile, inspired early landscape architects, such as Frederick Law Olmsted, Jens Jensen, and O.C. Simonds, to new heights of grandeur.
Maloney does not forget the backyard gardeners: immigrants whocultivated treasuredseedsand pioneers who planted native wildflowers. Maloneys vibrant depictions of Chicagoans like Bouquet Mary, a flower peddler who built a greenhouse empire, add charming anecdotal evidence to her argumentthat Chicagos garden history rivals that of New York or London and ensures its status as a world-class capital of horticultural innovation.
With exquisite archival photographs, prints, and postcards, as well as field guide descriptions of living legacy gardens for todays visitors, Chicago Gardens will delight green-thumbs from all parts of the world. (30081123)

Price : $18.78

Product Description

Inspirational, practical, and easy to use, this book was created with the aim of conveying the awesome diversity and beauty of California’s native plants and demonstrating how they can be brought into ecologically sound, attractive, workable, and artful gardens. Structured around major California plant communities–bluffs, redwoods, the Channel Islands, coastal scrub, grasslands, deserts, oak woodlands, mixed evergreen woodlands, riparian, chaparral, mountain meadows, and wetlands–the book’s twelve chapters each include sample plans for a native garden design accompanied by original drawings, color photographs, a plant list, tips on successful gardening with individual species, and more. Both residential and professional gardeners will learn the benefits of going native with gardens that require less water and fewer fertilizers, attract wildlife, engage the senses, create a sense of place, and, at the same time, preserve our rich natural heritage.
Designing Native California Gardens includes:
* More than 600 selected native species recommended for the garden
* More than 300 photographs of native plants, natural plant communities, and residential native gardens
* Recommended places to visit for viewing each plant community

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-06-08
I was looking for a book that would give me a comprehensive guide to xeriscaping with native plants. This book contains one section that approaches my needs but is more of an overview over the native plants of the many diverse vegetation zones of the states. For what it is, it is a nice book. Just not a match for me.

Review date : 2007-11-18
This book is a must have for the California native gardener. I’d say the book’s biggest strength is in its’ inspiration- contains nice photographs of natural landscapes and gardens modeled after them. It groups plants by communities which is nice, though maybe hard to do. I know I live in an area which doesn’t fit exactly into of any of the communities they list, but I can still get the idea they are trying to convey, and look around at what is in my community. California is so diverse you almost want a bunch of more specific and in-depth books for different areas inside California, but I guess maybe those areas of interest are too small to sell enough books to make it worth the while.

It does a good job listing different kinds of plants, my only complaint with this book is that I would have liked more pictures accompanying each plant for which information is given- because you really can’t tell from the brief physical description what the plant looks like. As someone else has mentioned, this book is best paired with California Native Plants For The Garden. However, this complaint should be taken with a grain of salt, for designing a California native garden I think this book is the best on the market. Together, these two books provide the backbone to build your California native plant book collection around.

Review date : 2007-11-14
Love this book, gets you to think in terms of plant groupings & not just on a singular level.

Review date : 2007-10-10
-We need more books like this to make Native Gardening more amenable. What "Landscapers’ Challenge" did for Landscaping, this book will hopefully start to do to open up the still rather arcane world of Native Plants. It is practical and full of detailed, appropriate, high quality photographs of sample materials. Visually on par with "Landscape Plants for Western Regions" by Perry.

Review date : 2007-09-26
This book is excellent, with many good photographic examples of complete native landscape. It also set for an excellent philosophy for landscape design for the both the use of native and non-native plants. However it really shouldn’t be thought of as a complete source for native gardening. I would also suggest that you pick up ‘California Native Plants for the Garden’ by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien. Even between these two books all of the possibilities for beautiful California native plants and landscapes created using them have not yet been fully explored, but these books are an excellent start.

If you have ever considered growing bamboo in the temperate regions then you should select your plants with care and paying good attention to both the cold tolerance and eventual size of the plants you choose. Prehaps the best behaved group and the most cold tolerant are the Phyllostachys bamboos.

There is an amazing selection available including some stunning coloured canes and and culm sheaths and foilage that range from bronze greed to light Jade in colour. I am pleased to reccomend what I consider the following bamboos as six of the very best to grace your garden.

Phyllostachys is a genus of bamboo from NorthLowlands of China. Some are extremely tough cookies and very exposure tolerant. This genus offers some of the best ornamental bamboos that are truly hardy in the United Kingdom. In their native warmer regions of China their root system which is intermediate can wander, however in the cooler more temperate zones of the UK, apart from one or two exceptions they are remarkably well behaved and reliably clump forming with slow lateral spread.

Most are quite easy to grow with only an annual hair cut and brush out to worry about. A good organic mulching and an annual feed is always appreciated. Remember to let fallen leaves compost down around the plant to replace valuable silica. Most Phyllostachys prefer full sun but some will tolerate light or dappled shade, apart from that they are not particular about the soil they are in but preferring heavier richer soils that can be kept evenly moist but not waterlogged. Once the plants are established they are fairly drought tolerant however they need to be kept watered until they have a proper foothold.

On the whole mostly pest free. Maybe an occasional attack of Aphids Mealy bugs Vine weevil or the dreaded mite. If you don’t mind chemicals spray with a propriety insecticide or alternatively use one of the organic sprays now available. If mites are the problem cut down the canes and burn them along with any fallen leaves and spray the surrounding area with miticide.

Phyllostachys bambusoides lacrimadeae. The Goddess Tears The Goddess Tears Bamboo. New from China comes an unusual ornamental form of this wonderful species which can be stunning. It has a similar vigour and stature. Black-purple markings on mature canes make this different from all others. It has been greatly underestimated since its introduction and there are very few of these around as yet, but that wont be the case for long. An admirable plant for a specimen.

Phyllostachys Rivalis Phyllostachys Rivalis. Vary Rare. Similar in form to Bissetii however extreamly rare. I do not know of any other sources in the UK other than The Pot and Grass Company. According to Ohrnberge the authority: 4 meters in height 1.5 2.0 cm in diameter. Originally from Guangdong, Nanxiong, and Fujan province. It grows mainly along the banks of mountain streams. This species was introduced into Britain possibly as a single plant from China which soon seeded and died. A single seedling derived from this plant and is grown in Germany. The Pot and Grass Company Rivalis has been independently reintroduced from China in 2006.

Phyllostachys vivax. Huangwenzhu Inversa This is a fairly recent introduction and reported to be wonderfully reliable. Green canes with a thick yellow stripe or stripes. Occasionally if you are lucky you will get a reversion on some of the culms. When this happens these culms revert back to the golden Aureocaulis and they will produce both coloured canes side by side. Two for the price of one, that cant be bad. Tidy with upright habit and sparse in leaf showing the canes of to good effect. It can tolerate some shade.

Phyllostachys nigra. Hei zhu. The Black Bamboo the famous black bamboo is unique. It is the only bamboo to produce truly black culms which contrast beautifully with the short bottle green leaves. This a slowish grower and although the height in its native China can reach as much as 14 meters, it rarely makes the 5 meter mark in temperate climate like the UK. However this really is a stunner of a bamboo and justly deserves all the praise it gets. The culms emerge pink/cinnamon then turning green and then ripen off over the next twelve months to a gorgeous shiny Japanned black. Looks wonderful in an oriental style garden or breathtaking as a specimen on its own.

Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda. The Walking Stick Bamboo. A very leafy bamboo which is a relatively small in stature and that enjoys light shade. This wonderful and still rare bamboo was only brought out of China for the first time in 1987. Used for centuries to make walking sticks by the Yi people in Szechwan this bamboo remained a closely kept secret. This particular Chimonobambusa is gorgeous, large saucer shaped nodes and dainty leaves call for a solitary position to show off this beauty. Keep in a sheltered spot for best performance. It can spread so in a small garden best confined to pots and planters.

Himalayacalamus hookerianus Moonraker; The famous Blue Bamboo. One of the most beautiful bamboos. It hails from the lower slopes of the Himalayas and Bhutan. The culms on emergence are blue with a hint of claret or purple, ageing to a pale barley gold. Best in a cool shaded position away from winds.

Enjoy your bamboo and your garden.