The Weather-Resilient Garden: A Defensive Approach to Planning & Landscaping

When bad weather happens to good gardens, most gardening books aren't much help. Stepping into the breach is The Weather-Resilient Garden, a comprehensive one-of-a-kind, region-by-region reference on how to plan and grow a garden that will flourish in normal conditions and be hardy enough to survive and thrive despite drought, salt, flooding, ice, snow, lightning, hail, high winds, extreme hot or cold spells, and even fire.

As part of his "defensive gardening" approach, horticulturist Charles W. G. Smith provides an encyclopedic list of resilient plants, with specific advice for each region of the United States. And for gardeners who regard "hardy" as a synonym for "unattractive," be assured that the plants Smith recommends are as beautiful as they are resilient.

Of course, sometimes weather is so violent that even the hardiest gardens are damaged. For those situations, Smith offers detailed problem-solving advice for every possibility---from something as simple as a tree that has lost a limb to a flooded lawn, uprooted plants, or damaged soil. He even explains what preventive measures you can take to minimize the damage when you know bad weather is on its way.