The American Meadow Garden

Description from Amazon

The American Meadow Garden: Creating a Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn Hardcover – November 21, 2009

John Greenlee (Author), Saxon Holt (Photographer)

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Timber Press; 1 edition (November 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881928712
• ISBN-13: 978-0881928716

If there’s one lesson every homeowner must learn, it’s this: The traditional lawn is a huge, time consuming, synthetic-chemical sucking mistake. The time has come to look for new ways to create friendly, livable spaces around our homes.

In The American Meadow Garden, ornamental grass expert John Greenlee creates a new model for homeowners and gardeners. For Greenlee, a meadow isn’t a random assortment of messy, anonymous grasses. Rather, it is a shimmering mini-ecosystem, in which regionally appropriate grasses combine with colorful perennials to form a rich tapestry that is friendly to all life ? with minimal input of water, time, and other scarce resources. Kids and pets can play in complete safety, and birds and butterflies flock there. A prairie style planting is a place you want to be.

With decades of experience as a nurseryman and designer, John Greenlee is the perfect guide. He details all the practicalities of site preparation, plant selection, and maintenance; particularly valuable are his explanations of how ornamental grasses perform in different climates and areas. Gorgeous photography by Saxon Holt visually illustrates the message with stunning examples of meadow gardens from across the country.

We’ve reached a stage where we can no longer follow past practices unthinkingly, particularly when those practices are wasteful and harmful to the environment. It’s time to get rid of the old-fashioned lawn and embrace a sane and healthy future: the American meadow garden.

Saxon Holt has combined his career as a photographer with a lifelong love of gardening. His work has appeared in dozens of books and gardening magazines. He is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers, the American Society of Picture Professionals, and the Garden Writers of America Association, from which he has received three awards for his photography.