Water Wise
Native Plants for Intermountain Landscapes
A practical volume for the home or business owner on landscaping with native, drought-tolerant plants in the Rocky Mountain West. Filled with color illustrations, photos, and design sketches, over 100 native species are described, while practical tips on landscape design, water-wise irrigation, and keeping down the weeds are provided.
In this book you will learn how to use natural landscapes to inspire your own designed landscape—around your business or home and yard. Included are design principles, practical ideas, and strong examples of what some homeowners have already done to convert traditional "bluegrass" landscapes into ones that are more expressive of the West. Landscaping on the New Frontier also offers an approach to irrigation that minimizes the use of supplemental water yet ensures the survival of plants during unusually dry periods. You will learn how to combine ecological principles with design principles to create beautiful home landscapes that require only minimal resources to maintain.
In the Mountain West, a place of rugged terrain and long-term droughts, it is time for a new kind of pioneering. Rather than continuing to mimic the moist English garden in our home landscapes—and spend substantial resources on maintenance—it's time to celebrate the unique attributes of where we live. Landscaping on the New Frontier will show you how to create a striking home or office landscape that reflects the place we live, in both its roughness and its subtleties.
Your starting point, your inspiration, lies in the rich array of plants, patterns and process around us: on the mountainsides, in the deserts, salt flats and canyons, in the valleys and along the meandering streams.
We are grateful to the following organizations for their generous support of this book and of gardening with native plants: Utah State University Center for Water Efficient Landscaping; Utah Native Plant Society Utah Valley Chapter; Intermountain Native Plant Growers Association; Central Utah Water Conservancy District; Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District; Weber Basin Water Conservancy District; and the office of the Honorable Senator Robert Bennett.
Reviews
Book News, Inc., 2009
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