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Tips for Carefree Landscapes
Over 500 Sure-Fire Ways to Beautify Your Yard and Garden.

by Marianne Binetti

ISBN 0-88266-572-3
168 pages; 6" x 9"; Line drawings; Paperback.

Lazy landscapers rejoice! Here's an invaluable book for everyone who loves to have an attractive garden, but hates to spend lots of time and energy on it. Marianne Binetti's philosophy is simple: Don't fight Mother Nature! Investing time up front -- preparing the soil and selecting the best plants for your area -- can save hours of sweat in the long run.

You'll learn how to keep down lawn maintenance by incorporating flowering shrubs and groundcovers into your landscape and by not striving for the "perfect" lawn. How to plant hedges that need little or no pruning. When you can save a problem plant from bugs and diseases and when you should just "throw in the trowel."

Professional garden writer Marianne Binetti shares hundreds of expert tips that guarantee maximum gardening enjoyment with a minimum of fuss. Tips for Carefree Landscapes answers the most-asked gardening questions and recommends the easiest plants to grow in both sunny and shady areas of your garden. Chapters on shrubs, bulbs, annuals, perennials, container gardening -- even low-maintenance roses -- explain exactly where you can cut corners and where you can't.

Here are just a few of the creative, sensible, and time-saving suggestions you'll find in Tips for Carefree Landscapes:

• Own an old, leaky hose? Punch a few more holes in it, put it along a shrub border or perennial bed, and cover it with bark mulch. You'll conserve water and save yourself work.
• Don't want to wait for compost? Try "spot composting" by digging small holes in your beds and throwing in your old weeds. You'll improve the soil as you go.
• Have a supply of Styrofoam "peanuts" around the house? Put them to good use by placing them in the bottom of a large planter -- they provide good drainage.