Home Landscaping: Northeast Region: Including Southeast Canada

My Mom was a master gardener, and I grew up in a wonderfully landscaped home. However, once I bought my own home I found that gardening talent was not genetic, it was earned. So I bought a ton of books related to Northwest gardening, and read each one diligently. I put into pratice Home Landscaping because is was extraordinarily practical and straightforward, the rest tend to be coffee table books. Conceptually, this is just a fantastic book, and while it puts out "bulletproof" gardening plans with specific plants and locations, the concepts of what goes where and why are the most useful. Experimentation is great, but with the concepts used, it's just a little less painful.

I had low expectations for this when I ordered it. I figured it would be one of those overly general "how to" books that leave out much of the important information. I was surprised to find that it has very specific plans for a variety of garden situations, plans which already show specific groupings of specific plants. I found this very helpful because I'm not particularly experienced in designing a landscape, nor am I wealthy enough to afford a landscape designer. There is a design for every corner of my new house, tailored to sunlight, etc. I can follow the plans verbatim and end up with a landscape that looks like it was professionally designed, or I can make small changes to personalize it. This is, as the previous reviewer commented, much easier than starting from scratch.Definately worth the money.

If you are just starting to landscape this is the place to start. Like many books there are quite a few landscape plans, but this book does three things others don't:1)Shows many variations of the same plan (shade and sun, fall color and spring, when planted and when mature).2)Clearly lists the name and quantity of each plant required, plus the plans are to scale so plant spacing is easy. (You or your installer could work directly from these plans or you can scale the plans up or down to fit your lot)3)Has an excellent reference section for all of the plants listed on the plans. This feature alone makes the book a good buy for Northeastern gardeners since most landscape books suggest buying a separate, comprehensive plant reference book - that will always contain many,many,many plants not suitable to the Northeast.

I purchased several books on landscaping and I found this book to be the most valuable to me. We recently landscaped the front of our home and since we live in upstate New York we needed some guidance in plant selection for colder climates. I found myself looking at this book over and over while researching what plants to use. The book is well organized with many useful photos, plant descriptions and profiles. As a result, I was well informed when I went to purchase the plants at the nursery and was confident in my plant selection. It was money well spent.

We have recently moved from California to New York and needed a lot of help in planning the relandscaping of our home. Not familiar with the plants of this region, this book has been an invaluable tool. It has everything one would need to create a beautiful landscape design!