The Bottom Line
Pros
- Great ideas for shorter season containers
- Lots of photos
- Scales design elements down to apply to containers
- Offers advice on choosing and maintaining pots
- Nice assortment of plants
Cons
- Photos don’t list all the plants used in the container
- Would have liked more on plant combinations
Description
- Authors: Laura Peters, & Allison Beck & Don Williamson. Softcover, 224 p., $19.95 Publisher Lone Pine
- Geared towards Canada, but the containers are applicable almost anywhere.
- Over 100 plants profiled and photographed.
- Approaches creating containers as a type of garden design.
- Features plants not often grown in containers, like perennials, shrubs and climbers.
- Gives the pros, cons and care of different container materials.
Guide Review - Container Garden Book - Container Gardening for Canada
Container Gardening for Canada is one of those books that will get dog eared and stained, because it’s not so much a how-to as an idea book. The best feature is the abundance of pictures. Besides photos of plants spilling out of an assortment of pots and unusual containers, I also liked the use of photography in the beginning how-to section, where they show how to loosen pot bound roots and how many plants to squeeze into a container.
Container Gardening for Canada also packs in a good deal of useful information. It’s a collaborative effort, with 3 of Canada’s most prolific garden writers each sharing their wisdom.
Container gardening has become especially popular recently among gardeners with limited space, time or even sun exposure. This book applies itself to these gardening limitations, but is easily applicable to anyone putting together a container.
The book approaches container gardening as a form of garden design, starting off with the basics of garden design and how they can be scaled down to container size. They discuss site considerations, appropriate plants, choosing and preparing pots, maintaining plants and a bit about problems you may encounter and how to avoid them. I appreciated the section on protecting and insulating containers against cold.
The bulk of the book consists of the Plant Directory. This is an alphabetical listing of 116 plants recommended for container gardens. Each plant is photographed, often in a container setting. The vital stats are listed along with growing instructions, recommended varieties and design tips. I really liked the inclusion of so many plants featured for their foliage and texture.
The book ends with a cross reference chart of the featured plants and their growing conditions. You don’t want to plant a water lover with plants that like it hot and dry, do you?
