Ornamental Grass Books
This book list includes grasses, sedges, rushes and bamboo.
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American Bamboos
Whole Earth, Summer 1999 Until now, it has been difficult to find information about American bamboos. Here's the book to bridge the gap, with numerous color photos and extensive details on the structure, evolution, ecology, and diversity of American bamboos. An identification key sorts species, giving very complete descriptions, habitat, range maps, and references. The authors discuss the conservation value, human uses, cultivation, and propagation of the bamboos
Bamboo for Gardens
The thought of growing bamboo sends shivers down many homeowners’ spines. Yet there are well-behaved bamboo cultivars that clump, not run amuck, like the running varieties. Even running bamboo can be contained and add beauty to the Northwest landscape. This book helps you to understand bamboo, and is a must have for anyone wanting to grow this adventurous plant for themselves.
Book Description Bamboos are unfortunately too often kept out of gardens for fear of their invasive qualities or lack of hardiness. In truth, these elegant grasses, encompassing both woody and herbaceous forms, can achieve dramatic yet restrained effects in a range of climates. Tropical and subtropical bamboos present many possibilities for landscapes in warmer climates, while the hardier species can be grown as far north as Minnesota.
Bamboo expert Ted Jordan Meredith provides a thorough and multifaceted treatment of these ancient grasses, including insight into selecting the right plant for the right situation. The bulk of the book is an encyclopedia of bamboo genera, species, and cultivars. More than 300 bamboos from 40 genera are described in detail, including information on size, lighting and temperature requirements, native range, physical characteristics, and landscape and other uses. Excellent color photos and clear line drawings effectively illustrate both the details and broader effects of these exquisite plants.
Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses: Sedges, Rushes, Restios, Cat-Tails, and Selected Bamboos
Book Description: This encyclopedia by a distinguished American horticulturist is the most authoritative and best-illustrated reference ever published on ornamental grasses. Rick Darke has been studying and photographing grasses in gardens and native landscapes around the world for more than 20 years, and this book includes the best 500 photographs from his collection of nearly 15,000. At its heart is the illustrated alphabetical encyclopedia of important ornamental grasses, sedges, rushes, restios, cat-tails, and selected bamboos, with many plants illustrated in more than one season. Intended for gardeners in a wide range of situations and climates, this book is an invaluable tool for landscape architects, garden designers, nursery professionals, and home gardeners.
I wrote a review about the CD version of the book the year it came out. You can read it HERE.
The Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses: How to Grow and Use over 250 Beautiful and Versatile Plants
Book Description: From the fresh green shoots of spring through the dramatic foliage of summer, the lush colors of autumn, and the pale, feathery maturity of winter, grasses add a special touch to the garden in every season. Native species of beautiful ornamental grasses flourish in almost every part of North America. Now these attractive, adaptable plants are making their way into yards and gardens across the continent. Ornamental grasses are easy to grow, and they provide year-round landscape interest. No wonder grasses have been enjoying a new popularity.
The Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses is a comprehensive, fully illustrated reference. An informative opening section describes and illustrates the different types of grasses and their habits. This section also provides a basic primer on gardening with ornamental grasses, including practical advice on selecting and buying plants; using them in the landscape; planting, maintaining, and propagating them; and fighting pests and diseases without harmful chemicals.
The Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses provides descriptions of over 250 grasses. For each major entry, the encyclopedia features a color photograph of the grass, plus a special information box that gives the grass's botanical and common names, hardiness zone, origin, and preferred sites. A comprehensive description follows, with information on the grass's physical characteristics (color, habit, height, and flowers), landscape uses (for example, as a border, in masses, as an accent, or for cutting), culture and propagation (its preferred conditions and propagation methods), and any potential pests or problems. Cultivars and varieties are listed as well.
A special section of ornamental grass garden designs by well-known designers provides lots of ideas for using grasses in perennial borders, meadows, curbside plantings, and cutting gardens. A resource section lists suppliers of seeds, plants, and equipment, and a bibliography suggests where to find further information. An index of common and botanical names makes this book as easy to use as it is practical, informative, and beautiful.
The most comprehensive reference available, The Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses is destined to become a classic work on the subject-- a must for any serious gardener.
Grasses: Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design
Book Description From spring green to winter gold, the drama of grasses is nonstop. There are the striking yellow-and-green ostrich plumes of Zebra Grass. The fine-textured leaves of Blue Oat Grass. Flame Grass's dazzling red-orange leaves, Fountain Grass's coppery brushes, the rich brown nuggets of Northern Sea Oats, the feathery purple haze of Switch Grass.
Whether on their own or as backdrops for colorful garden flowers, ornamental grasses are admired for their color, form, movement, and texture. They also aid in erosion control, soil stabilization, and water retention, making them great conservation tools for gardeners in all hardiness zones. Although grasses are widely available at garden centers all over North America, few books advise the gardener on how to use them in the garden - and especially how to combine them with perennials and other plants. GRASSES features plans and practical advice for more than 24 unique gardens. It's complete with an identification and growing guide to the plants, and it features more than 150 full-color photographs, illustrations, and landscape plans.
Landscaping With Ornamental Grasses
Book Description Sunset is the first to offer Landscaping with Ornamental Grasses, a complete design and reference book that explores the history of grasses in their natural settings, and describes how to integrate them in a variety of climatic situations shady woodland to desert, Asian-style gardens to naturalistic landscapes, family-friendly yards to small patios. Step-by-step directions, over 250 beautiful photos, ideas for stylish indoor container and craft projects, and retail and mail-order sources make this new edition a must for anyone passionate about expanding their gardening repertoire.
Ornamental Bamboos
Book Description Bamboos are among the most fascinating of plants. Their unusual life cycle, tremendous power of growth, and extraordinary diversity of size and form give them a special significance in gardens. And gardens of all sizes can accommodate these elegant plants, which are cold-resistant and surprisingly easy to grow. Yet even today, with bamboos enjoying a well-deserved return to popularity, their horticultural potential remains largely untapped. Some bamboos make impressive specimens for the border, others form a fast-growing hedge or screen, and short forms provide a leafy groundcover. David Crompton explains the characteristics that set bamboos apart, and everything that is needed to grow them successfully. The core of the book is a gardener's guide to nearly two hundred ornamental bamboos to grow and enjoy, supplemented by lists of bamboos for specific purposes.
Ornamental Grasses for the Western Garden
Ornamental grasses are among the most popular elements of contemporary gardens. They are also water-wise additions to the western garden, key plants in drier climates where environmental factors can be extreme at times. In Ornamental Grasses for the Western Garden, indefatigable gardener Marilyn Raff offers a wide range of decorative grasses for gardeners in the West.
Says Raff, “When the gardener plants grasses among other plants,
an exciting and fruitful union occurs.” In a lively narrative that informs while it entertains, Ornamental Grasses for Western Garden goes beyond mere plant descriptions. Using hard learned lessons from her own gardening exploits over the past twenty years, Raff delves into the heart and soul of these wondrous grasses. She shows how ornamental grasses, with their repetitive lines, colors, textures, height, and movement, add beauty and function in any garden setting.
In addition to providing unique visual diversity to the garden landscape, decorative grasses offer an easy-to-grow, drought-tolerant alternative to other more “needy” plants. Readers will find factual tidbits and helpful suggestions on environmental and climatic aspects, including planting, care, maintenance, and “growability” concerns. The book also recommends plant companions for grasses, such as richly colored shrub roses, perennials and annuals—all of which add verve to gardens either baked by sun or shrouded in shade. Over 100 vivid full-color photographs accompany the text, showing how these “plumes with panache” are not mere accents for the western garden, but rather a necessary and beautiful foundation.
Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses
Book Description Ornamental grasses surpass all other garden plants in their luminous qualities. Their colors are softly sophisticated, varied, and subtle. They include a striking array of textures, forms, sizes, and flowering times and have appeal in the garden throughout the year. Grasses' ethereal quality, sound, and movement make them ideal choices for gardeners and landscape designers alike. Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses provides an accessible and comprehensive reference to the wide range of grasses available to the gardener. Building on Darke's bestselling The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses, the guide describes many new species and cultivars, includes dozens of new photographs, and presents cultivation information and descriptions in a handy, compact format. Covering 530 species and cultivars and illustrated with 320 color photographs, Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses is a valuable complement to Darke's Color Encyclopedia. Its convenient format makes it an ideal reference to take to the nursery or garden center.
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