Free Downloads Reimagining The California Lawn:Water-conserving Plants, Practices, And Designs
Reimagining the California Lawn features water-conserving plants from around the world and offers design ideas and practical solutions to help you create a vibrant garden that complements our mediterranean climate. From greenswards and meadows to succulent and kitchen gardens, this book presents alternatives to the traditional lawn that can reduce water use, beautify the landscape, and attract birds and butterflies. The authors of Reimagining the California Lawn, Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O Brien, are visionary horticulturists who wrote the award-winning book California Native Plants for the Garden. With this new publication, they share their passion for water-wise plants and landscapes to help Californians discover the many possibilities and pleasures that come with reimagining the lawn. If you are thinking about removing or reducing your lawn, this inspiring book is the perfect companion to help you begin the process. Its detailed text provides information about how to plan, install, and maintain an attractive landscape that can replace your lawn and describes hundreds of water-thrifty plants from California and other mediterranean climates of the world. Reimagining the California Lawn is illustrated with more than 300 color photographs and offers a variety of plant palettes to choose from as you begin the process of creating a more sustainable landscape.
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Cachuma Press; First edition (April 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0978997123
ISBN-13: 978-0978997120
Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 7.8 x 10.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #67,172 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #9 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Region > West #38 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Landscape #55 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Garden Design
This book takes on the monumental task of discussing and explaining the water-conserving plants and practices that can replace the wildlife-free zone known as the lawn. I was pleased to find the authors relying heavily on natives to create the lovely examples shown, and the non-natives are appropriately low-water and friendly to pollinators and birds.What I love best about this book is they show how to design with natives in a way that is beautiful and fits into most people's ideas of what a lovely garden or landscape should look like. So many books about native plants show them in the wild, and while it's nice to be able to ID the plants - actually seeing them in use in the garden, draping over a wall or mingling with other plants, is massively helpful. The non-native plants are easy to find in nurseries and are good garden do-ers that will perform successfully and look attractive even in the worst conditions. Following the advice in the book, it'd be hard to create an ugly garden.The book also has a set of plant lists in the back for quick reference, and they don't shy away from tackling the toughest design problems, either. Dry shade, "bulletproof", poor drainage - they cover a number of specific scenarios that are tough to find effective plants for.If you dream of chipping away at your lawn and planting something more beautiful, friendly to wildlife, and that uses less water, then this book will be an invaluable guide along the way. Their coverage of succulents, native plants, and ideas for how to deal with edibles in the front yard make it an invaluable reference for generating ideas for a lawn-free garden.
This is a fabulous book for those of us who plan to get rid of our lawns to conserve water. What is particularly helpful are the myriad high-quality pictures which give ideas and inspiration.What I particularly like is the variety of ideas: meadows, succulent gardens, cacti, veggies, wildlife gardens. There is something for everybody.I initially got this book from the library to see if it was a reference I needed to have. IT IS!!
Since we live in Southern California where the price of water is rising faster than we can keep up with it we made a decision 18 months ago to exchange 40 percent of our thirsty lawn for plants that need much less water. This was an important and complex project since our neighborhood is larger older ranch-executive homes fronted by a lot of lawn and with very short or low walls delineating property lines. So colorless, thorny plants weren't an option. We hired an excellent contractor and gave him a color palette and an instruction that we wanted year around color and a water bill 40% lower than previously. Our contractor did most of the thinking for us and we really had no written reference at our finger tips. Now the garden is an absolute wonder and includes rabbits and quail. But it is ever changing as our moods suit us or a plant dies -- we've only lost 5 of the 148 original plantings. If you are planning a project like ours or looking for ideas to improve what you've got, this book is an absolute must and deserves to be handy on your coffee table (you will be asked a million questions about your project) both as a reference and because it is a beautiful, informative tome.
Carol Bornstein is a recognized authority on California Native Plants, so I ordered this book for ideas on how to incorporate them into a "lawnless" landscape. The quality of the photographs is not what I had hoped for. Many of them are small for a landscape book and they didn't seem to be that sharp. They probably suffered during the printing process.The plant section is in alphabetical order and has a wealth of information about each plant. She also gives information on how to remove a lawn and offers many lawn substitutes that use less water. I would have liked to see more photos of houses with drought tolerant landscapes, and most of the photos in the book were of individual plants or partial landscapes.
Our front/back yards needed renovation after we moved to the house we bought. Having no experience in landscaping, I wasted quite a lot of money without any positive outcome. Then I bought this book (based on reviews on ) because I wanted to know exactly what plants will be good for my climate (I live in San Diego) and amount of sun my front/back yards get (parts of these get varying degrees of sun light during any given day). I cannot be happier. Here are the pros:1) Very concise and to the point. You can go through whole book over a week end2) Though small in size, still covers a lot (and I mean quite a lot) of different types of plants (all of them suitable for California)3) Quite a number of very good pictures which give you many ideas how to setup different garden styles (book discusses seven different garden styles, I settled on greensward)4) Very well organized. After discussing individual plant profiles, there is a section which puts plants in different groups for reader to easily makeup his/her mind what to use in a particular scenario (for example "Aggressive", "Aromatic", "Bulletproof" and many more)Plants which I finally used in my front (and back) yard, came from the ones discussed in this book. They are growing healthy and look beautiful. I highly recommend this book. But please keep in mind that this is California specific (clearly implied in title)
Reimagining the California Lawn:Water-conserving Plants, Practices, and Designs Air Plants: A Beginners Guide To Understanding Air Plants, Growing Air Plants and Air Plant Care (Air Plants, Ornamental Plants, House Plants) Starting Your Lawn Care Business: The complete guide to making money with your lawn care business startup (lawn care service,) The Florida Lawn Handbook: Best Management Practices for Your Home Lawn in Florida Water Treatment WSO: Principles and Practices of Water Supply Operations Volume 1 (Water Supply Operations Series) Fruit Infused Water: 80 Vitamin Water Recipes for Weight Loss, Health and Detox Cleanse (Vitamin Water, Fruit Infused Water, Natural Herbal Remedies, Detox Diet, Liver Cleanse) Texas Lawn Guide: Attaining and Maintaining the Lawn You Want (Guide to Midwest and Southern Lawns) The Lazy Person's Common Sense Guide to the Business of Lawn Care: How to Become a More Laid-back Lawn Expert and Enjoy the Grass! Perfect Texas Lawn -OSI (Creating and Maintaining the Perfect Lawn) The only Lawn Care and Maintenance resource you will ever need.: Hundreds of useful tips to obtain the lawn of your dreams Easy Lawn Care: Learn How to Always have a Picture Perfect Lawn with Green Grass and No Weeds All Year Long... The Organic Lawn Care Manual: A Natural, Low-Maintenance System for a Beautiful, Safe Lawn The Lawn Care Entrepreneur - A Start-Up Manual: The Ultimate Lawn Care Business Guide for the Gardening Tycoon Black & Decker The Complete Guide to a Better Lawn: How to Plant, Maintain & Improve Your Yard & Lawn (Black & Decker Complete Guide) Lawn 101: 32 Tips In Caring & Maintaining A Beautiful Lawn California Rules of Court - State, 2015 ed. (Vol. I, California Court Rules) (California Rules of Court. State and Federal) The Drought-Defying California Garden: 230 Native Plants for a Lush, Low-Water Landscape How to Propagate 375 Plants: An illustrated directory of flowers, trees, shrubs, climbers, water plants, vegetables and herbs, with 650 photographs The Illustrated Practical Guide to Water & Rock Gardening: Everything You Need To Know To Design, Construct And Plant Up A Rock Or Water Garden With Directories Of Suitable Plants And How To Grow Them Water-Wise Plants for the Southwest (Water Gardening)
