Staff Pick
Striking geometric beauty and a forgiving nature make succulents the perfect addition to any garden. In Succulent Container Gardens, award-winning writer Debra Lee Baldwin offers hundreds of suggestions for stunning potted arrangements featuring these otherworldly plants. I dare you to make it to the end of this book without gasping at least once. Recommended By Tove H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
With their colorful leaves, sculptural shapes, and simple care, succulents are beautiful yet forgiving plants for pots. If grown in containers, these dry-climate jewels -- which include but are not limited to cacti -- can be brought indoors in winter and so can thrive anywhere in the world.
In this inspiring compendium, the popular author of Designing with Succulents provides everything beginners and experienced gardeners need to know to create stunning container displays of exceptionally waterwise plants. The extensive palette includes delicate sedums, frilly echeverias, cascading senecios, edgy agaves, and fat-trunked beaucarneas, to name just a few. Easy-to-follow, expert tips explain soil mixes, overwintering, propagation, and more.
Define your individual style as you effectively combine patterns, colors, textures, and forms. Discover how top designers interpret the dramatic options, in ideas ranging from exquisite plant-and-pot combinations to extraordinary topiaries and bonsai. Expand your repertoire with plump-leaved plants that resemble pebbles, stars, and undersea creatures. Short on space? Create vertical gardens and hanging baskets, and use daisylike rosettes in wall displays.
Each of the more than 300 photographs offers an inspiring idea. A-to-Z descriptions cover 350 of the best succulents, plus companion plants. Whether your goal is a gorgeous potted garden for a sunny windowsill or outdoor living area -- or simply making great gifts -- this is a comprehensive primer for creating vibrant, living works of art.
Review
"Planting succulents in containers opens the way for a hobby within a hobby." Dean Fosdick
Review
"Seeing how gardeners turned birdbaths and tiered water fountains into flowing arrangements of sedum, aeonium, echeveria and crassula struck me as the perfect comeback to those who say succulents are boring." Associated Press
Review
"Succulent Container Gardens lives up to all of my hopes and expectations for the book. ...if you're thinking that 2010 will be the year you give succulents a try, this book will help you create a unique and beautiful pot or two or ten. Not to mention give you enough information to keep your new plants alive for many years to come." Mari Malcolm - Los Angeles Times
Review
"There is plenty to inspire here, with lots of lovely photographs of plants spilling out of all manner of pots; and Baldwin's extensive information...has the hallmark of personal experience." Booklist
Review
"Baldwin will surely ignite a fire under green thumbs who are already drawn to this realm of intriguingly textural plants. ... Regardless of skill level, gardeners will draw on Baldwin's expert propagation advice for a cost-cutting way to expand one's garden." Apartment Therapy blog
Review
"The information is presented clearly and simply and would be great for a novice but still in depth enough for a semi-seasoned succulent-er." Omnivoracious blog
Review
"As I paged through this book for the first time, I think I shouted some obscene expression of admiration every few pages."
Fine Gardening Online
Review
"I strongly suggest that you add a copy to the shopping list for yourself. You'll be reading it for years." Omnivoracious blog
Review
"A pleasure for the eye and filled with ideas and useful information."
Review
"I strongly suggest that you add a copy to the shopping list for yourself. You'll be reading it for years." SciTech Book News
Synopsis
Succulents are forgiving plants that require
minimal water and very little care. They are
the perfect plant for a modern, busy gardener
who wants to consume fewer resources and
spend less time toiling in the garden.
In this inspiring and practical guide, Debra
Lee Baldwin-the award-winning author of Designing with Succulents-provides everything you need to
know to design, plant, and nurture succulents in pots of any size. Succulent Container Gardens makes
container planting easy. In addition to tips on selecting, designing, and planting, Baldwin also includes
lessons on how to pot and care for succulents outdoors and how to overwinter them indoors. When
taken indoors in the winter, succulent container gardens can thrive in any climate anywhere in the
world. She also shares her design basics and tips on using pattern, color, and form to pair plants and
pots. Vivid photography showcases the imaginative work of garden designers and creative gardeners
who interpret the shapes, colors, and textures of succulents, often in surprising ways.
Detailed descriptions of compatible companion plants are also included, and easy-to-use lists of
plants by key design criteria provide an inspired and reliable guide to exquisite, no-fail arrangements.
Synopsis
Define your individual style.
With their colorful leaves, sculptural shapes, and simple care, succulents are beautiful yet forgiving plants for pots. If grown in containers, these dry-climate jewels--which include but are not limited to cacti--can be brought indoors in winter and so can thrive anywhere in the world.
In this inspiring compendium, the popular author of Designing with Succulents provides everything beginners and experienced gardeners need to know to create stunning container displays of exceptionally waterwise plants. The extensive palette includes delicate sedums, frilly echeverias, cascading senecios, edgy agaves, and fat-trunked beaucarneas, to name just a few. Easy-to-follow, expert tips explain soil mixes, overwintering, propagation, and more.
About the Author
Award-winning garden photojournalist Debra Lee Baldwin wrote
Designing with Succulents (2007) and
Succulent Container Gardens (2010), both bestsellers. She is a regular contributor to the
Los Angeles Times and major gardening magazines. Debra's specialty is showing how top designers use these architectural, waterwise, low-maintenance plants in a wide variety of creative, eye-catching applications.
Debra has presented at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, the Denver Botanic Garden, and major flower shows in Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Francisco, to name a few of many prestigious venues. Her own garden near San Diego has been featured in Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and other publications.