The Midwest presents special challenges to the aspiring flower gardener. This title outlines the author's tried-and-true strategies for outmaneuvering the midwestern climate to cultivate a thriving garden. It offers guidance on enriching the soil, composting, planting and transplanting, watering, pinching and pruning, and combating pests.

The flowers described here will thrive and winter over in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Passionate gardeners in cooler climates struggle year after year to overwinter their gorgeous tropical plants. Our new paperback edition is the answer to their problem — practical advice for achieving the tropical look in a temperate garden. The authors, who both live and garden on Long Island, New York, reveal the secrets to creating a lush, flamboyant landscape. Separate chapters cover such topics as principles of design and maintenance, proper plant selection, container gardening, and overwintering. Fantastic color photography throughout will inspire gardeners in even the hardiest zones. With the help of this book, an impressive tropical garden is within any gardener's reach.

Create your own beautiful cottage garden. This practical book offers advice to help Midwestern gardeners--whether novices or old pros--achieve beautiful, organic gardens drawing on ageold cottage garden traditions. Learn how to use a lively mixture of perennials, annuals, fruiting trees and shrubs, vegetables, and herbs.

Bring your garden to life—and life to your garden! Do you want a garden that makes a real difference? Choose plants native to our Midwest region. The rewards will benefit you, your yard, and the environment—from reducing maintenance tasks to attracting earth-friendly pollinators such as native birds, butterflies, and bees. Native plant expert Alan Branhagen makes adding these superstar plants easier than ever before, with proven advice that every home gardener can follow. This incomparable sourcebook includes 225 recommended native ferns, grasses, wildflowers, perennials, vines, shrubs, and trees. It’s everything you need to know to create a beautiful and beneficial garden. This must-have handbook is for gardeners in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Reliable advice and succinct tips for growing a surprising variety of flowers from early spring until late autumn.

“A common-sense handbook for gardeners” who live in the plant hardiness zones of the Midwest with extreme temperature swings (HortScience). Garden columnist Diane Heilenman helps novice and experienced gardeners cope in the difficult and trying climate of the areas she labels Zombie Zones, where wild temperature swings are normal—“specifically, upper Kentucky; all of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; lower Iowa; all of Missouri; and the lower parts of Wisconsin and Michigan” (Library Journal). She shows how to create gardens appropriate for the region and how to select flowers, plants, trees, and shrubs that will be happy—and in turn make us happy. A gifted thinker who grapples with what it means to garden in our time, Heilenman has produced a book that “will help slacken the stress level that gardening was never meant to bring” (HortScience). “[Heilenman] gets to the heart, the soul and the humor shared by all in the gardening world . . . both a practical reference and an inspiration.”—The Herald-Times (Bloomington, IN) “Presents basic gardening techniques and personal plant preferences in a breezy writing style.”—Library Journal