This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.

Two Books Call Us to a Garden Revolution

As a landscape designer, I am asked a lot about the hit parade of backyard problems: weeds, moles, moss in the lawn, deer, rabbits, woodchucks, grubs, how to find the best plant, how to get backyard privacy, and crabgrass.

The single biggest concern, however, is often stated like this: “How can I do less maintenance?”

Many then add, “I’d like to let it go natural, but I don’t know how to make it look good.”

In the past year, two new books have arrived to describe how to let a landscape “go natural” in a beautiful way. To get there, however, takes a bit of a revolution.

Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West (Timber Press, 2015) begins with the observation that we humans now touch more of the planet’s land than not. Directly or indirectly, humankind sets the direction for almost every vegetated place and there’s no going backward. Based on that premise, Rainer and West offer both a conceptual framework and the how-to details of a very new—and perhaps even controversial—approach to modern landscape planning in 250 pages of handsome photography, instructive charts, lists of references, and easy-to-understand text.

Rainer and West say that three essential relationships should determine our landscape plans.

One relationship is between people, landscapes, and plants. When we fail to consider human preferences and needs in a planting plan, they say, we fail to engage the very audience that must invest in the maintenance and improvement of the planting.

The second essential relationship is between the plants and the ecology of a place, the foundation of ecological landscape design.

The third relationship is among the plants themselves. Plants interact both above and below ground with other plants and all the soil-dwelling creatures—from moles to microbes. This theme is embodied by the book’s subtitle and, in my opinion, sets the book apart from others in the field. Plant communities are little-understood and too seldom discussed in garden and landscape literature.

The authors rely on the concept of garden layers to explain the planning process. At first, the term may seem out of place, but they make it clear. Every landscape has a structural layer, for instance, which includes persistent materials such as trees and shrubs. There’s a seasonal layer, which features blossoming perennials, and a functional layer, which contains ground covers that keep soil covered and nitrogen-fixing plants that provide nourishment.

Where Rainer and West’s book excels in its explanation of plant communities, the second book, Garden Revolution, excels in its explanation of meadows and other naturalized plantings.

Garden Revolution (Timber Press, 2016) is co-authored by Larry Weaner, one of the best known practitioners of meadow design in the country. Co-author Thomas Christopher has written numerous books on gardens and landscape design.

The book begins with Weaner’s landscape education, a process in which he unlearned counter- productive (high maintenance) practices of conventional horticulture and learned to listen to the plants themselves over more than 30 years of classroom and field work.

The authors present the core concepts of “wild-scaping” and help us take the leap from the old style to a new style of planting. They also include a thorough review of the core concepts that make implementation possible: site analysis, plant selection, site preparation, weeds, and long-term management. The book covers not only meadows, but shrublands and woodlands as well.

Garden Revolution is a vividly illustrated 300-page book, with numerous examples of mature plantings from Connecticut, other northeastern settings, and the rest the country.

Make no mistake: A low-maintenance, self-sustaining landscape requires us to leave behind the old triumvirate of well-mowed lawns, perennial beds, and shrub islands surrounded by neatly placed bark mulch. The new approach takes some planning, particularly in the first three years. The reward, however, is a landscape that is less work and healthier for the planet—as well as good looking.

If you’re ready for your own garden revolution, check out these books.

Kathy Connolly is a garden writer and speaker from Old Saybrook. Contact her through www.SpeakingofLandscapes.com.