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Introduction With this book, beautifying your home landscape has never been easier—or more economical and fun. Forget all the complications of gardening rules and jargon; we’ve simplified this process to a series of straightforward recipes, like your favorite cookbook. Follow the step-by-step instructions and you’ll find that success comes just as surely outdoors as in the kitchen, as you quickly transform the ordinary into something truly special. As with cooking, the success of your garden depends on the quality of the ingredients you use. Proven Winners has devoted years to collecting and testing plants, seeking varieties that not only produce the most attractive flowers and foliage, but which are also the most reliable and durable performers. All are outstandingly vigorous, disease-free, and the best of their kind in coping with stresses such as extreme heat and drought. The plants in these recipes are also easy to grow: most are compact, and so can stand on their own without troublesome staking and with a minimum of pruning. You’ll find detailed introductions to creating both in-ground gardens and gardens in containers. Part one starts with the basics—selecting a spot, designing a garden, shopping for plants—that apply to any type of garden and any type of gardener. The second part is dedicated to landscape gardening. Before delving into the twelve recipes, with themes such as fragrant combinations and shady retreats, read up on everything from preparing the soil to keeping your garden healthy down the road. Next, the container section: a trove of twenty-five enticing designs along with the container-specific know-how for getting your plants happily situated in their pots (or urns, baskets, bowls, and more). Simple planting schematics and plentiful photos combine to present a full picture of how to do it and what beauty the end result will offer. Interwoven throughout the book are tips for saving money and techniques that make the job easier—tricks of the trade that we learned from the pros. We understand that your time and money are both precious. With this book, you’ll economize on both, almost certainly earning back the cost of this book and more with the first landscape project you undertake. To that point, a variety of studies have found that good landscaping can add 10 percent or more to the value of your home. So while enhancing your own satisfaction and pleasure in your home, you can at the same time boost its curb appeal. Everyone’s situation is different and so are their tastes. That’s why we’ve made these recipes easy to adapt. It’s your choice: you can use the recipes in this book as a blueprint for your planting—plug them right into your landscape—or as a starting point for developing your own plans. Maybe you’ll need to adjust a recipe to better suit your local climate, or maybe you want it to better reflect your plant preferences. In either case, these recipes are calculated to encourage creativity; we’ve recommended substitutions for the various ingredients to help you customize each recipe, if that is your desire. Keep in mind that the plants in each of the thirty-seven recipes, including the recommended substitutes, have been selected for their compatibility. That is, all plants in a given recipe thrive in the same degree of sun, in a similar climate, and with a comparable degree of moisture. They are also aesthetically compatible— within the same recipe the plants work together in color, texture, and fragrance to create a whole that is greater than, and more beautiful than, the parts. If, for any reason, you cannot find the recommended plants or substitutes at your local garden center, you can use another Proven Winners plant of the same type. So, for example, if you cannot find Infinity Pink New Guinea impatiens, you can substitute Infinity Pink Frost or even Infinity Dark Pink or Infinity Salmon Bisque. Lastly, if you choose to include or substitute plants beyond the ones recommended in the book, just be sure that they are compatible with the other elements of the recipe. Above all, this process is about trusting yourself and your instincts. If you’ve ever decorated a house or even just a room, you already have many of the skills you need to make your homescape attractive, comfortable, and colorful. This book will help you harness those skills and provide the technical support you’ll need to express yourself in greenery and flowers. It’s your garden after all, and should reflect your taste and please you, fitting your lifestyle and the needs of your family.
