Title: Easy Container Gardens
Author: Pamela Crawford
Pages: 172
Review by: Tennille
Gorgeous containers, and lots of them. That is what you will find in container gardening guru, Pamela Crawford’s latest container gardening offering, Easy Container Gardens. Crawford is widely known for her container gardening expertise and her creations have been featured on the covers of several popular gardening magazines, such as HGTV Magazine and Better Homes and Gardens. Easy Container Gardens is volume 2 of Crawford’s container gardening series and is her attempt at providing an easy to follow guide for creating container gardens. The caption on the very bottom of the front cover reads, “For Anyone Who Has Ever Killed A Plant!” and is an indication of the simplicity and straightforwardness that this resource is trying to provide. Although there are many terrific ideas for specific containers that may be helpful to the more advanced container gardener, I believe that this book will prove most beneficial to the beginner container gardener.
The book is divided into 8 chapters; Container Basics, One Plant Wonders, Two Plant Combos, Four (or More) Plant Combos, Side-Planted Containers, Succulent in Containers and Best Container Plants. The first 53 pages or so are devoted to covering beginner container gardening principles discussing things such as, container gardening mistakes, differences between container and landscape gardening, light conditions and planting techniques. In these early pages Crawford also shares with us the results of her plant trials conducted in her very own trial garden. She informs us that a staggering 92% of the plants that she planted in the ground in her trial garden died. On the other hand however, plants planted in containers during her container gardening trials fared much better, with far fewer casualties. With this experiment Crawford concludes that planting in containers is far easier than planting in the ground, making container gardening an ideal choice for those of us who habitually commit plant homicide.
In addition to providing great basic information, this book contains easy to follow container ideas. There are specific ideas for planting single plants and/or combinations of plants in each container. Each design is categorized as being blue ribbon or red ribbon. Crawford using the following criteria classifying a container as either blue ribbon or red ribbon:
Blue Ribbon: Performs consistently every year, little to no trimming, does well in most climates, last the growing season, few pest problems, good history, blooms continuously
Red Ribbon: Performs consistently every year, requires some trimming, does well in most climates, last the growing season, may have some pest problems, good history, blooms continuously
The only difference between the two are the Red Ribbon choices require some monthly trimming and many are more susceptible to pests. Crawford does a great job of describing containers in both categories, which creates a wealth of options for the container gardener. She provides a full page description on each container which includes information on light requirements, which season to plant in, expected lifespan, care, water requirements, troubleshooting and planting plan. Crawford also provides a full page photograph of the finished container.
Easy Container Gardens is a solid container gardening resource. Crawford has put together a thourough and beautifully illustrated book. I feel that it would be an assest to any gardening library and is ideal for beginnger container gardener.
Tennille
