So our balcony herb garden is all planted and functional, our succulent containers are healthy and thriving, and our planting bed is sort of taking care of itself. This means that there's actually time (and mental space) to consider what's next. A living wall? A vegetable garden? Taking it easy? Here are some of the books we turn to for inspiration, add yours to the list and let us know what you're working on in your garden:
5 Inspiring Garden Books
Garden Anywhere by Alys Fowler. This book breaks down "how anyone can create an oasis in the smallest of spaces". Totally useful for small apartment gardening. Plus the focus isn't on fancy pots, but a healthy garden. Alys teaches you how to amend your soil and keep plants thriving in small patches.
The Hot Garden by Scott Calhoun is a huge resource for creating a garden in hot, dry climates like the Southwest. The book is gorgeous filled with amazing images to inspire your own responsible, drought tolerant garden.
Sunset Western Garden Book is the bible when it comes to what plant to plant where. I've got a copy that got passed down to me from my mom. You can access some of the plant database on Sunset's website now, but nothing beats just looking it up in the book. It's heavy, but worth it.
The Garden Book is mainly a coffee style type book that has page after page of inspiring gardens. From grand scale Parisian gardens to small Japanese balconies, it catalogs hundreds of different styles of garden. Great for when you just want to see what's out there.
The Small Garden came out a couple of years ago but has some nice examples of minimal, small space gardening. It's got some nice ideas for narrow areas, rooftops and balconies and has soft and hardscape ideas.
Has anyone read any good books on vertical gardening or living roofs?
Comments (8)
Daily Email
Top Tours
- Jennifer's Art-Filled East Austin Home!
- Jaime and Carleton's Backyard Palm Springs
- Alysia's Treehouse by the Lake
- Moses and Jamie's Whimsical Modern
- A Mid-Century Modern Musicians' Loft
Top Posts
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Crockett's Victory Garden- an oldie, but a goodie that is based on an old PBS television show out of Boston. My mother it passed down to me as the book that introduced her to gardening. It has a month-by-month guide of what to do in the vegetable garden. While some of it is dated (thanks a lot, global warming) it is a great book to refer to throughout the year, particularly if you live in the NorthEast.
view misshoxie's profile
Thanks for the resources, I'll check out a few of them. I'm working on my balcony container garden for the Spring Cure (I'm won't be finishing on time, clearly!). I have the basics down for the anchor plants and general layout, but could use some inspiration for plantings around and under the anchor plants, so this is timely.
view SanDiegoAT's profile
Another great one for southern California is Pat Welch's Southern California Gardening. It's all very specific to our planting climate and is organized by month with checklists for what you should be doing in your garden.
view LilyC's profile
We designed a garden from the ground up here. It is about a year old now, and starting to look wonderful. Some of the books we that used are
Sunset's Western Landscaping Book
Beyond the Lawn, Unique Outdoor Spaces for Modern Living by Keith Davitt
Small Space Gardens by David Stevens
Patio, Garden Design and Inspiration by Jamie Durie
they all have great pictures that I still like to look at
view mrs yow's profile
SanDiegoAT: try McGee & Stuckey's The Bountiful Container. It gives great advice on successive planting to get more out of your container space as well as what to plant together. It has totally increased the production of my patio container garden.
view desylic!ous's profile
Thanks, everyone, for posting other resources! :-)
view SanDiegoAT's profile
I requested several of these titles from the library, and was able to pick up the David Stevens Small Space Gardens this weekend. He and I have very different ideas on what constitutes a 'small space'. His gardens may be small compared to, say, a public park or botanical gardens, but otherwise I can't see calling most of the plans small. ;-) My entire apt would fit with room left over into many of his gardens! But there were some pretty gardens.
Life on the Balcony suggested a container gardening book also, I will look for it as well.
http://lifeonthebalcony.com/review-of-california-container-gardening/
view SanDiegoAT's profile
SanDiegoAT--Did you ever check out Container Gardening for California? I still refer to that book often for plant combination ideas and for plant info. I'd be interested to hear what you think about it.
view Fern @ Life on the Balcony's profile