Nancy J. Ondra

I've been interested in ornamental grasses for over a year now. There were two unrelated events that pointed the way for me. One was spending the last 7 years rehabilitating our own lawn after the previous homeowners let it go a bit. That taught me all about how our yard behaves over multiple seasons.

The other event was playing Minecraft with my two boys. Yes, Minecraft. While my kids were primarily interested in adventuring and battling zombies, I was intrigued by the architectural and show more landscape design side of the gameplay. Go look it up, there's an entire online community devoted to this. Minecraft allowed me to quickly and easily build and then instantly see what works and what doesn't, all with the added benefit of multiple perspectives. It could be designing building exteriors, planting trees or even arranging different ornamental grasses. Doing this bridged my interest from the digital to the real world.

This book covers the basics on how to get started with grasses no matter what climate zone you live in. And while grasses in general are preferred if you want something low maintenance, unlike flowers for example, you'll quickly learn that depending on the kind of garden you want you'll still have a fair bit of maintenance to contend with. This is also true if you plant thoughtlessly without doing your homework. I'm certainly guilty of this. But it's all a labor of love if you've committed to the outcome. show less

This is a terrific book! I can see why it won an American Horticultural Society Award. Even though I no longer garden, I love gardens and visit them at every opportunity. This book presents ideas and solutions for anyone who seeks to improve the visual impact of their own garden, and explanations to help one understand how other gardeners, public and private, achieve the effects they do. The author's love and enthusiasm for her subject are obvious, but they're tempered with very practical show more information and suggestions in the descriptions that accompany each plant. It is well organized by foliage color, and within each color chapter, by leaf/plant size and impact. The photos that illustrate the various ideas are for the most part very good. The only reason I didn't rate this book 5 stars is that there are few if any photos that show the different foliage plants in a context of other surroundings, either blooming plants or other foliage plants. show less

Beautiful pictures of 42 combinations of plants and flowers. Helps explain color, scheme, arrangement and containers to fit your style.

Very straightforward approach to the subject.