Every gardener wants to create breathtaking designs with color, form, and texture. But perennial combinations present challenges: How do I know all plants will bloom at the same time? How do I pick plants that have interest in each season? Most perplexing - which plants look good together in the first place? "Perennial Companions" takes away the guesswork by providing Tom Fischer's 100 proven picks. New gardeners will learn how to create simple pairings with two plants and gardeners with a bit more experience - or beginners looking for a challenge - will find complex arrangements with four or more plants. Arranged chronologically by season, spanning the earliest spring to the onset of winter, each entry identifies all the main plants by both common and botanical names, specifies the care and conditions each requires, and indicates when the combination reaches its peak of beauty. Love flowers? You'll find both quiet compositions and bold blends. Prefer the texture of leaves? You'll find ferns and soft sweeping grasses. Better yet - combine both for sophisticated tapestries that beguile and dazzle the eye.
Whether you want to create a small-scale sanctuary, a welcoming path, or a bewitching border, you'll find an abundance of inspiration in this perfect package.
Author Biography
Tom Fischer is editor-in-chief at Timber Press in Portland, Oregon. He got his start in book publishing at the University of Chicago Press and Beacon Press, and spent 14 years on the editorial staff at Horticulture magazine in Boston. His Boston garden featured a hardscape created by Douglas Reed, of Reed Hilderbrand Associates, and contained noteworthy collections of unusual flowering shrubs, shade perennials, and delphiniums. After moving to Portland in 2004, he began a new drought-tolerant garden composed of plants from the world's five Mediterranean climate areas, with an emphasis on West Coast natives. His garden was profiled in The Oregonian in 2008. His most recent project has been a collaboration with Portland designer Lauren Hall-Behrens to create a lush, exotic garden featuring ornamental grasses, palms, ferns, salvias, Pacific Coast irises, and Southern Hemisphere plants. A prolific writer as well as an editor, Tom's articles have been featured in magazines such as Garden Design, Gardens Illustrated, and Martha Stewart Living. His book, Perennial Companions: 100 Dazzling Plant Combinations for Every Season, was published by Timber Press in February 2009. He also has a website, OverPlanted.com
