Gardening with Foliage First: 127 Dazzling Combinations That Pair the Beauty of Leaves with Flowers, Bark, Berries, and More

by Karen Chapman, Christina Salwitz

Overview

Create a foliage-driven garden that dazzles!
 
Although seductive, flowers, by their fleeting nature, are a fickle base to provide long-lasting gardens with year-round interest. Tackle this problem with the advice in Gardening with Foliage First. Learn how to first build a framework of foliage and then layer in flowers and other artistic elements as the finishing touches. This simple, recipe-style approach to garden design features 127 combinations for both sunny and shady gardens that work for a variety of climates and garden challenges.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604696646
Publisher:	Timber Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/25/2017
Pages:	340
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Karen Chapman is an award-winning landscape designer, the co-author of two books, Fine Foliage (St. Lynn’s Press, 2013) and Gardening with Foliage First (Timber Press, 2017), and a popular speaker at botanical gardens, nurseries, and flower and garden shows across the United States. Her articles and designs have been featured in many online and print publications, including Garden Design, Fine Gardening, and Better Homes and Gardens. Visit her at lejardinetdesigns.com.

Christina Salwitz is a horticulturist with a passion for the use of color in design. Her Seattle-area business, The Personal Garden Coach, helps gardeners of all skill levels to achieve their gardening dreams with flair and originality. Christina’s containers and writing have been featured in many publications including Better Homes & Gardens and Fine Gardening, and she is a regular speaker at garden clubs, horticultural shows, botanic gardens, and nurseries all over North America. She tests her crazy design ideas in her Renton, Washington, garden, determined to perfect the art of “cramscaping” as many luscious plants as possible into a small suburban lot. Her blog is personalgardencoach.wordpress.com.
 

Read an Excerpt

Introduction:
Sensational Scenes, Expansive Ideas, and Original Thinking

What do you get when you let two designers loose in a nursery? A car filled to overflowing with a wild assortment of trees, shrubs, perennials, and more. It is a given that you will not be able to see out of the rear window, and you should expect to have plants on the seats, on the floor, and in cup holders. It is only when plants are precariously balanced on the dashboard that we think we may have enough.

But these are not just any plants. The majority will be an outrageous selection of foliage plants with enormous tropical leaves jostling feathery grasses; stripes, spots, and splashes alongside bold solid colors from vibrant orange to deepest purple. Tucked in here and there will be some flowering plants. Experience has taught us that these truly perform, either with a reliably long bloom time or interesting leaves as well as flowers.

As designers, speakers, and coauthors, we have gained a reputation for being entertaining as well as inspiring and for sharing our expertise in a way that is easy to understand. We encourage and challenge each other, which brings out the best in both of us. This, in turn, provides readers with a much broader range of ideas than either one of us could accomplish alone. Together we have fun while we walk you through our design process, which puts foliage first, then adds a final flourish to take the scene from predictable to exceptional.

The Floral Seduction

When you go to the grocery store, you probably have a plan (or at least a recipe) in mind. But how often do you take a shopping list to the nursery? Without forethought, you are headed for disaster—it is too easy to get seduced by all the colorful flowers so prominently displayed. On impulse, you grab one of this and one of that, and when you get home that collection of pretty blooms never quite translates into a glossy magazine image. It is just a wild kaleidoscope with no cohesive sense of design—or, worse, the blooms fade, and you spent a lot of money on a short-term burst of glory. What went wrong?

You may have chosen plants that are individually beautiful, but did you consider whether they look good together? Is there a visual connection between them? Or perhaps you succumbed to the display of blooming annuals and perennials, the enticing photographs promising an abundance of flowers in summer. But how many months do you need to wait for the plants to reach that stage—and how long will they bloom? If you focus on the flowers without considering the foliage, you may end up with a disappointing mélange of midsize green leaves for much of the year, not a unified, well-designed look. It is far more effective, and attractive, to start with foliage.

Taking the Next Step

After building a foliage framework, we show you how to layer in flowers or other artistic elements to add the finishing touch. We take the mystery out of the design process and explain what makes a combination successful. If you follow our ideas or use them as a springboard for your own creations, you will feel like we are your personal design coaches.

In this book, we demonstrate how quickly and easily you can assemble plants that reflect your personal style and suit the largest border or smallest container. We teach you how to make strategic plant choices, clarify why certain plants are great investments for year-round interest, and explain how every element will help you achieve a cohesive look.

Inspiration for All Seasons, Situations, and Settings

Our ideas go beyond the typical summer growing season. The book is divided into two main sections—Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter—both of which feature design schemes for sun and shade situations. You will be able to create a true four-season garden that will work for your style and design challenges. Are you still trying to outwit the deer? We feel your pain, and have included Beauty Without the Beast just for you. Looking for something to add winter interest to your cold-climate garden? We were inspired by Serendipity and we think you will be, too. Do you prefer a hot, spicy color palette? Sassitude is sizzling hot. Need ideas for a fall container? Pumpkin Spice Latte is just one of the flavors on the menu.

We scoured gardens from British Columbia to Arizona to Florida to Washington State to find designs to delight, inspire, and embolden you to try new ideas, new plants, and new ways of looking at plant combinations. There are ideas for small patio containers to large sweeping borders, and everything in between. Each combination includes an explanation of how it works. Many of our favorite plants have multiple periods of significance, and this section discusses how each component evolves during the year and offers ideas on how to extend the season of interest even further.

New gardeners will quickly gain confidence as they learn how to select plants that work together, as well as how to identify the details that create a strong foliage picture frame for the flowers on which they may have initially focused. Intermediate gardeners will learn how to transform their gardens from a jumble of collectors’ plants to a carefully composed design, while those with many years of dirt under their fingernails will be inspired by a fresh twist on old favorites—plus exciting new introductions that will spark the imagination and help you craft unique creations.

Editorial Reviews

A successful planting combination is as much about beautiful foliage as it is about flowers—that’s the premise of the upcoming book Gardening with Foliage First.” —Sunset

“This is a useful resource for new gardeners testing their design teeth and for experienced horticulturalists looking for some new inspiration. Regardless of the reader’s experience and expertise, the recipe format is charming and engaging. . . . If you haven’t designed a “foliage first” garden before, Chapman and Salwitz have design recipes in hand, and a willingness to help and inspire you.” —NYBG’s Plant Talk

“A rainbow of opportunity in pot of gold at the library.” —The Daily Telegram

“This collection of 127 combinations introduces gardeners to the idea that a well-planned garden starts with a solid framework of foliage. . . . each plant combo includes design descriptions that will equip readers with the knowledge they need to get creative and devise their own.” —Garden Design Magazine

“Beautiful and plentiful photos show you exactly how the plants work together, and of course provide inspiration to try other combinations on your own. . . . this a book that no designer should be without.” —Garden Design Online

“This book belongs in every gardener’s library and is suitable for a wide variety of readers; it is beautiful, informative, and highly motivational.” —Choice

“Whether you have 20 acres or a modest patio arrayed with large containers, you’re bound to find exciting new design possibilities.” —The American Gardener

“There are two major reasons why I buy gardening books: I want to expand my knowledge, and I want to be inspired. The best books combine both aspects. Timber Press found a way to cut through the noise with a new book to be published later in January: Gardening with Foliage First by Karen Chapman and Christina Salwitz.” —Succulents and More

“If ever there were a recipe book for a huge array of plant ingredients, this is it.” —Petal Talk Blog

“This lushly photographed encore is even more useful as the authors teach us how to see the color and texture in foliage shapes and tones and combine vegetative plant material to compose beautiful combinations.” —The Daily News

“This collection of 127 combinations introduces gardeners to the idea that a well-planned garden starts with a solid framework of foliage. Organized by season with options for sunny and shady locations, each plant combo includes design descriptions that will equip readers with the knowledge they need to get creative and devise their own.” —Garden Design

“With 127 inspired plant combos, designers and authors Karen Chapman and Christina Salwitz make a convincing case for greenery over flowers in Gardening with Foliage First.” —San Diego Home and Garden

From the Publisher