The Well-Designed Mixed Garden: Building Beds and Borders with Trees, Shrubs, Perennials, Annuals, and Bulbs

by Tracy DiSabato-Aust

Book Overview

The Well-Designed Mixed Garden is a design book with a difference. Written for gardeners who are passionate about plants of all kinds, it reflects decades of professional experience and artistic innovation. Tracy DiSabato-Aust provides not only inspiration but also scrupulously organized information on design and connoisseur plants. A gallery of detailed design plans is included, as is an encyclopedia of plant combinations with notes on design considerations...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0881929670
• ISBN13: 9780881929676
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Timber Press (OR)
• Length: 460 Pages
• Weight: 3.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 10.0" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Great book

A great book with much useful information.

Destined to be a classic garden reference.

I'm a master gardener from Illinois,and have heard Tracy Disabato-Aust on a number of occasions. Her book The Well-Tended Perennial Garden has long been our bible for perennials. In this new book, she makes accessible for all gardeners the depth of her experience and research in incorporating many kinds of plants in a mixed border. The book is worth buying for the appendices alone: plants by design and maintenance characteristics as well as common/scientific name cross-references. A must-have garden reference book!

A great work.

I am designing a garden for my campus and continue to work on my home landscape. The Well-Designed Mixed Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust answers my questions like it knows what I am thinking. I was wondering about garden scale in relation to buildings, among other things, and now have a good idea. I find a treasure trove of information for my consideration and use in this book (as well as in the Well-Tended Perennial Garden). The discussion of color is intense and wonderful. The reference areas and examples are invaluable. The writing style is friendly and unstuffy. The information is inspired and important. I am grateful for this book both for my job and my home landscape. It has been commuting with me every day for the past 2 weeks.

A Design Must!

The Well-Designed Mixed Garden is a design must for every gardener! Unlike other design books that are like workbook manuals, this book is full of inspirational photographs, beautifully hand painted diagrams and plans, and a full text that illuminates the design dilemma of having a full complement of plant material that combines the very best in aesthetics. The plant charts and cross reference material provides the do-it-yourself gardener with the tools and knowledge to complete a unique, interesting and well-designed garden.

A "must-have" for every gardener's bookshelf!

After attending a lecture by Tracy DiSabato-Aust, I overheard another participant remark, "now I finally understand WHY I like certain gardens!" That statement sums up the information in this book. It provides "the whys and the wherefores" of garden design in clear and simple language with appropriate illustrations so that one can understand exactly which details make a garden work: from considerations of scale, texture, and rhythm-- to color and the influence of natural light-- to specific artistic combinations of woody and herbaceous plants.The excellent photos of plant combinations in this book make me salivate, wanting to recreate every one of them for myself. It is particularly stimulating to see the seasonal changes in specific garden vignettes- An early December description begins, "the foliage of a rose is candied by December's chill..." with an accompanying photo of rose foliage edged in white frost and surrounded by spent flowers and seedheads of scabiosa. Wow! This book points out simple visual pleasures in a garden that might easily be overlooked-- as well as how to make spectacular borders of any size. Applying information from The Well-Designed Mixed Garden can appease anyone's appetite, great and small, for horticultural delights!This book has something for everyone, from the novice gardener to the professional designer. The plant lists and design charts in the appendices are worth the price of the book in themselves for immediate useful information. Bravo!!

I am very happy

Finally a book for a beginner that makes sense. I've read the first chapter and said, "Aha!!" and "Oh that's what that means! at least twice. I believe that even as I become a more advanced gardener, I will still refer to this book often. The plants are cross-referenced lots of different ways so that if you want a plant that yellow, you can look it up. If you want a plant that easy to care for, you can look that up too. If you know the Latin name, you can look up the common name for most plants. There is alot of information about color theory in a garden. The author explains everything in easy to understand terms with a sense of humor. There is one thing that I'd like to suggest. The author spends alot of time referring to plants by their latin names especially in the photos. I've seen a plant in a photo that just knocked me out and I wanted to get one. It's an extra step to have to stop, mark your place, and look it up in the index to find out what it's called in the real world. It would be better to call them by their common names under the photos. This is very small complaint in a book that is excellent!! I spent part of my plant money for this year on this book and I believe that I have spent my money well. Buy this Book!!!