August 2006 Home and Garden

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Home and Garden

Perennial Combinations: Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right from the Start

Perennial Combinations: Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right from the Start
by C. Colston Burrell
Published 1999 by Rodale Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0875968066

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Jacket Notes:

Perennial combinations are the building blocks of beautiful, successful gardens. Choosing perennials that look great and grow well together is a skill that can take years to develop, but with this book, you're guaranteed to make perfect plant choices right from the start. In "Perennial Combinations, expert plantsman, C. Colston Burrell hand-selects 120 of the best perennial combinations for homeowners, then offers his expert advice on how to grow and use the combinations to create great gardens.

Each combination is featured in a stunning color photograph accompanied by a numbered photo key and plant list, so it's easy to find and buy exactly the right plants to re-create the combination in your own garden. Each combination features just two to six plants, so they're perfect for even the smallest garden space. You can plant each combination just as it appears in the book, or for a bigger color splash, just repeat the combination or mix it with others that are suited to the same conditions. You'll find combinations for stunning bloom from spring through fall; combinations especially suited to challenging sites like heavy clay soil or seaside gardens; and combinations just for fun, like fragrant combinations and combinations that attract butterflies.

C. Colston Burrell has lived and gardened in different climates across America, so he's made sure this book is useful to gardeners from California to Maine. He's also a professional garden designer, and he's applied his talents to create 22 original garden designs that feature the book's individual combinations. Plus every page includes his personal gardening wisdom, so you'll not only know which perennials to plant together, you'llknow how to maintain those perennials so your garden will look beautiful year after year.

About the Author

C. Colston Burrell is the author of "A Gardener's Encyclopedia of Wildflowers, which won the American Horticultural Society notable books of the year award for 1998. He is also the co-author of "Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Perennials, "Successful Organic Gardening: Perennials, and "Successful Organic Gardening: Landscaping with Perennials. He is a garden designer, writer, photographer, and the owner of Native Landscape Design and Restoration, which is located near Charlottesville, Virginia.


The Hillier Gardener's Guide to Trees and Shrubs

The Hillier Gardener's Guide to Trees and Shrubs
by Brenda Jackson
Published 1997 by Reader's Digest Association

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0895779730

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Jacket Notes:

From the name known round the world comes this authoritative, beautifully illustrated guide to making the best selection for the home garden and landscape. Step-by-step instructions are given on planting, pruning, and guarding against pests and disease. 3,000+ full-color photos and illustrations.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 11/03/1997

"If you want to create a garden for a year, then fill the borders with flowers. If you want to create a garden for a lifetime, then plant it with trees and shrubs." Thus begins this revised version of the comprehensive 1991 edition, which provides numerous charts detailing USDA hardiness zones, diseases and pests, specific plant characteristics and even plant nomenclature. Discussed are the biology of trees, principles of design (a mature garden has three layers: tree canopy; a middle layer of shrubs and small trees; and a ground level of flowers and herbacious perennials). A guide for pruning and propogating complements the alphabetical directory of 4000 high-performance trees and shrubs, with 13 pages devoted to maple tree variations alone. Other sections examine foliage, coastal trees and soil variation. Although pricey, this volume, illustrated with over 3000 color photos can serve as sole reference on trees and shrubs for all but the warmest regions of the U.S. (Dec.)


Teach Yourself Visually Scrapbooking

Teach Yourself Visually Scrapbooking
by Rebecca Ludens
Published 2006 by Visual

Paperback, English. ISBN: 0764599453

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Jacket Notes:

Plain or fancy, formal or fun, chronicling special events or everyday moments, scrapbooks are the perfect, personal way to preserve precious memories and create lasting keepsakes. This visual guide walks you through choosing albums and papers, organizing and cropping photos, and more, and explains step-by-step essential techniques like journaling, designing appealing pages, and using embellishments to add pizzazz. The layout gallery gives you great ideas for travel, family, heritage, and other pages, while a chapter on organizing your stuff helps you keep everything in its place.

Concise two-page lessons show you all the steps to a skill and are ideal for quick review Each skill or technique is defined and described Detailed color photos demonstrate each step Step-by-step instructions accompany each photo Helpful tips provide additional guidance


The Carbohydrate Addict's No Cravings Cookbook: 200 All-New Low-Carb Recipes to Satisfy Every Craving

The Carbohydrate Addict's No Cravings Cookbook: 200 All-New Low-Carb Recipes to Satisfy Every Craving
by Rachael F. Heller
Published 2005 by Dutton Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0525948554

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Jacket Notes:

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 12/20/2004

Judging from this book's title, readers might think it was a cookbook to help curb carbohydrate cravings. But the subtitle tells the real story: these are low-carb recipes designed to satisfy the kind of cravings that can strike any eater: for foods that are creamy, hearty, cheese-filled, spicy hot, crunchy or tangy. The authors also address cravings for specific cuisines: Chinese, Italian, Japanese, etc. Since this is their 12th Carbohydrate Addict's cookbook, the Hellers assume readers are already on the low-carb bandwagon. The goal of this book, then, is to provide fun and interesting recipes to keep the low-carb dieter from getting bored. Cauliflower stands in for rice in Curried Okra (with the additional tip that okra is a no-carb way to thicken soups and stews); Winter Night Tuna Melt is served warm on lettuce leaves, and Porcupine Cheese Ball is a party food made with cheddar cheese, cream cheese, mayonnaise and crushed pork rinds, scooped onto celery sticks. The recipes for these high protein (and often high fat) dishes are easy to follow and often begin with entertaining and personal stories about their origins. Health issues are left to the judgment of readers and their doctors, and only the carbs, not the grams of protein or fat, are provided for each recipe. Agent, Mel Berger. (Jan.)